When did our business start with the catchy slogans? Stay alive in ’25? Stay in the mix in ’26. It’ll be heaven in ’27. How about, “Try to earn a little revenue every day, day after day.”? Smart mortgage bankers look at units, not dollar volumes. If an LO does $5 million in a month, is that one $5 million loan or ten $500,000 loans? And if your cost per loan is $11,000, on a $5 million loan that is good, since the monthly hit is $11,000, but on the ten loans it would be $110,

The new phone books are here, the new phone books are here! Oh, wait a minute. The new conventional conforming loan limits are here! The new conventional conforming loan limits are here! True, lenders that are entirely focused on non-Agency products like non-QM (without many of the loan level price adjustments or gfees) may not care too much, but for most, Freddie Mac’s and Fannie Mae’s changes are followed closely. For 2026 we’re up from 2025’s $806,500 to $832,750. This

Want better affordability? Lower house prices certainly helps, and this article states that more than half of homes in the United States have fallen in price in the last year. Forget interest rates: Certainly, there are fewer willing buyers when they know ahead of time that they may face increasing insurance, tax, or condo fees. (Lenders are doing what they can to control costs, and a recent STRATMOR piece is titled, “Rates Drop, Pipelines Pop: Don’t Let Fulfillment Flop.” )

“Remember to bring up politics at Thanksgiving to save some money on Christmas presents.” “What do tornadoes and Tennessee divorces have in common? Someone's going to lose a mobile home.” (My father’s family is from there, so I can use that one.) Mobile homes are one segment of the manufactured home biz, and at the other end of the scale there are some grand houses out there that are made in factories… It makes so much sense. Many in the United States believe that manufactur

“Six cows were smoking joints and playing poker. That's right: The steaks were pretty high.” The steaks, uh, stakes, are high when changes to our housing finance system occur, or actions are taken that are negatively impact borrowers or reputations. In a typical organization, the CEO reports to the board of directors. The FHFA oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and with FHFA Director Bill Pulte, he pretty much appointed the boards of Freddie and Fannie but they are ultimate

“Here we are, a week away from Thanksgiving, and I’m in Kansas City . My family told me to stop telling Thanksgiving jokes, but I said I couldn’t quit cold turkey.” The CFPB isn’t going away “cold turkey” but yesterday’s personnel move was a reminder that there are clever people in Washington DC. It was a follow up to Trump Administration court filings last week that said the CFPB was on track to run out of money to operate at the beginning of next year and argued that it w

As I type these words, I am sitting in front of one of Chuck Berry’s early residences in St. Louis. STL has a good musical reputation, a fine mortgage association , a Fed that puts out great research, and has many nice neighborhoods. But to call this specific area where I am sitting a “transitional” neighborhood would be generous. Although there is potential, nearly every house standing could use an immense amount of work, and the residents probably aren’t regulars at home i

Supposedly commercial air travel is back to normal, good for anyone coming in for the Mortgage Bankers Association of St. Louis event tomorrow and Thursday’s Mortgage Bankers Association of Kansas City annual luncheon. Speaking of Missouri, the Pony Express ran between St. Joseph and Sacramento for 18 months in 1860–1861, put out of business by the telegraph. (I had an ancestor, Frank “Deafy” Derrick, who rode for the Pony Express.) The telegraph was a great example of “bet

Today’s trivia: Missouri and Tennessee are tied for bordering the most states: eight. This week I head to Missouri, the jumping off point for thousands of wagon trains heading west in the mid-1800s. Back then, land grants were relatively common but home loans weren’t, LTVs were high, and repayment was usually within five years. Deals were done with a handshake. Fast forward to today, and we have Fannie Mae dropping its minimum credit score requirements and relying more on DU

The U.S. Federal Reserve doesn’t set mortgage rates, the market does. People in our biz know that mortgage rates and pricing are a function of supply and demand, not from some Administration decree for a 50-year mortgage, assumability, or portability. The same can be said of food, hence President Trump changing his tariff policy again given higher prices due to those tariffs, and precious metals, with some twists. Gold is a traditional gift in Vietnam (connoting luck), so at

I always wonder, when I see two gas stations near each other in a small town, if the owners agree on pricing and share information. But when you’re dealing with trillions of dollars of mortgages and millions of borrowers, well, that’s a different scale, and the leader and boards of directors should be held responsible if the news is correct. Per the AP, “A confidant of  Bill Pulte , the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data

In news underwriters will need to know, banks and satirists across the United States are taking Director Bill Pulte’s and President Donald Trump’s 50-year mortgage suggestion are running with it. They (the underwriters) would now require an applicant's grandkids to co-sign on a 50-year mortgage "just in case” as part of the approval equation. What happens when you leave out a key part of the equation? ( Skip ahead to the two-minute mark for another chuckle.) The IT staffs o

It's dog eat dog in the ranks of the FHFA and Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. The question is, does anyone care, or is anyone surprised? We want to follow the law, right? Everyone knows that the Trump Administration fired the Inspector General and Fannie’s ethics staff . Now the Wall Street Journal reports that, “Fannie Mae Watchdogs Probed How Pulte Obtained Mortgage Records of Key Democrats… FHFA’s acting inspector general handed probe report to U.S. attorney office that had indi

As the central states brace for a cold snap, I received a note from a mortgage broker in Florida. “Rob, don’t politicians understand that housing ‘affordability’ problems aren’t only the result of rates and prices that are set by the markets? Owners are hit by taxes and insurance increases. What about condo fees and special assessments? What about city and county fees? Loan level price adjustments are determined by historical performance. Extending the maturity of a mortgage

“6-7!” has swept the nation for youngsters of indeterminant age, and for no real reason. Other numbers have meaning, as do dates. For example, today is November 10 th and on this day in 1975, the freighter S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior during a massive storm, killing all 29 of the crew. (Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the tragedy in a hit song the following year.) What’s in a number? Today, let’s look at “50” or “100.” Through some social media software, the p

“ What did they say? Can you rewind it?” Let’s start with something totally non-mortgage-related but applies to nearly each and every one of us. A new survey found that 34 percent of U.S. adults (including, somewhat counterintuitively, 40 percent of those aged 18 to 44) always or often use closed captions when watching television shows or movies. The accessibility setting has gone thoroughly mainstream, and young people adopting subtitles as the norm is an interesting wrink

How was the Louvre in Paris robbed? The password for the cameras was… ready? Louvre. (I’m sure that the Smithsonian, MOMA, Vatican IT, and lender IT staffs are busy changing theirs. (I have my passwords in a notebook… no one can read my scrawl.) Lenders and vendors on the conference circuit are hoping that the Federal Aviation Administration has better security, and its website says, “The FAA manages the world’s safest and most complex aviation system. On an average day, we

Frequent conference goers or traveling salespeople are obviously concerned about the Trump Administration cutting 10 percent of flights for a variety of reasons. 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration agents are working without pay. For anyone looking for a job through the Job Board , here’s a pro tip for a question in your next interview: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Answer: “Celebrating the 5 th anniversary in your l

“Did you hear about the Chinese guy who spoke out against the government? Exactly.” Hate the U.S. Government or love it, sometimes government and lender interaction is beneficial, sometimes not. The ongoing federal government shutdown not only has impacted citizen’s psychology, but has hit FHA and VA loan processing via reduced staff, creating endorsement delays of days to weeks. USDA loans remain completely halted for new guarantees, although it appears that IRS transcript p

“Being a parent is like being a psychic who is always right but is always ignored.” Here in Austin, TX, whether it was the Texas Women Mortgage Bankers’ Fall Social with Faith Schwartz and Alanna McCargo last night or the TMBA’s Housing Summit speakers today, no one is ignoring anything. No lender can ignore the shutdown, and anyone who believes that residential lending and politics, at all levels, don’t overlap is mistaken: look at what is going on with FHA, VA, GNMA, IRS