Apr. 24: Cap. mkts, LO jobs; Retention, HELOC, digitization, secondary platform, CRA products; lottery psychology; FHA delinquencies

Rob Chrisman
5 hours ago
11 min read

“Home is where you know exactly how far to turn the knob to get a perfect temperature shower.” “Home” conjures up varied thoughts depending on who you ask; even those who prefer ‘van life’ will call their van a home. But things aren’t cheap out there: With housing costs consuming up to 50 percent of the median income in some states, the personal-finance company WalletHub released its report on the States Where People Spend the Most & Least on Housing to highlight where homeownership is least affordable for the average resident. Few politicians point at insurance, utilities, local government, worker availability, or builders when discussing affordability, but we do have the Administration laying out its fixes for affordability. Recall that in this year’s State of the Union address, President Trump declared that "low interest rates will solve the Biden-created housing problem" and touted mortgage rates as "the lowest in four years and falling fast." Data suggests that's not how Americans saw it, and the war in Iran doesn’t help. Storable's 2026 Moving Forecast (release), a national survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, found that 38 percent of would-be movers say they need rates below 4.5 percent before they'd seriously consider buying or moving. Another 17 percent need them between 4.5 and 5 percent. Good luck with that. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Experian Verify, a comprehensive income and employment verification solution for mortgage lenders. By uniting instant payroll data, permissioned access, and research verification in one seamless experience, Experian Verify helps lenders reduce friction, accelerate decisions, and confidently verify every U.S. worker. Today’s has an interview with Experian’s Joy Mina and Ken Tromer on helping mortgage lenders cut costs and speed up closings by offering an early, integrated view of employment verification that improves decision-making, enhances borrower experience, and supports broader automation in lending workflows.)

Employment

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“At Evergreen Home Loans™, our in-house servicing keeps you connected to your clients with ongoing communication, responsive support, and a team that puts people first. Homeowners continue to feel cared for and confident, which reflects directly on you. For loan officers, this means stronger referral partnerships, deeper client loyalty, and a clear advantage in a competitive market when Evergreen services the loan. Reach out if you are looking for a company that supports you and your clients. To learn more, visit discoverehl.com or contact Todd Miles, EVP of Production Growth.”

An established, well-funded Company is seeking a seasoned mortgage capital markets professional to spearhead the creation and management of an outsourced hedge execution desk, primarily focused on TBA and whole loan trading for mortgage lenders. This is a well-compensated opportunity to design, lead, and scale a standalone business unit serving multiple lender clients and to design and launch an outsourced hedge execution platform delivering hedge recommendations, trade and whole loan execution services, develop the operational framework, trade protocols, and client service model, leverage deep market insight to execute trades, utilize investor relationships, establish, manage and maintain broker-dealer and investor relationships and negotiate efficient execution structures, utilize third-party analytics, dashboards, and risk reporting tools, act as the principal consultant and trading lead for early-stage clients, with potential to expand into a recurring revenue line. For a full job description, contact me or send a resume and an overview of your preferred engagement structure to me.

The Chrisman Marketplace is a centralized hub for vendors and service providers across the mortgage industry to be viewed by lenders in a very cost-effective manner. We’re adding new providers daily, so check back often to see what’s new. To reserve your place or learn more, contact us at info@chrismancommentary.com.

Lender and broker products & services

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Two established names in mortgage verification. One national CRA built to serve how lenders actually operate. Advantage Partners Solutions brings together the experience of Advantage Credit and Partners Credit and Verification Solutions into a single, unified partnership. Here's how it works: clients access credit reporting through Credit Interlink, our in-house platform, or MeridianLink Mortgage Credit Link. You pick whichever fits your LOS and your team keeps moving. We support both with the same people and with the same level of service. Our platform aligns with your workflow & our partnership with you stays consistent. APS is a model built with intention, backed by experience, and delivered by a team that deeply understands the pace of mortgage operations. If you are evaluating your credit reporting partner, take a closer look at how this structure supports your team and long-term growth. Get to know APS. Start the conversation today.

Black Lake Digital Markets: Institutional Rails for Mortgage Capital Markets! Black Lake Services is now Black Lake Digital Markets. Black Lake Digital Markets provides an end-to-end origination and secondary market platform covering pricing, trading, rate sheet and guideline management, TPR staging, settlement, and transfer in a single stack. Built across the full asset spectrum: Non-QM, Jumbo, HEI, MSR, whole loans, and Fannie, Freddie, and Ginnie Mae production. If your secondary desk is currently managing 14 investor guidelines in PDF, rate sheets in Excel, and single-loan transfers over email, you are not alone… You are the industry. We built Black Lake Digital Markets to fix it. The platform offers Correspondent-in-a-Box™ (pricing, trading, QC, settlement, and transfer), Guideline Shredder™ (machine-readable non-agency guidelines for delivery certainty before the lock), RuleStudio™(investor-ready guideline and rate sheet customization), and Shocktimization Non-QM™ (best-efforts and mandatory forward optimization and hedging purpose-built for non-agency). Learn more about the platform at blacklakedigital.com or contact info@blacklakeinvestments.com.

“One Diligence LLC is an AI-driven, rated Third Party Reviewer (TPR) delivering scalable solutions through SaaS or fully customized platform integrations. Designed for modern lending and servicing operations, One Diligence streamlines complex document processing workflows using patented AI-ML document training, data extraction, PDF viewer for source of truth and custom rules engine platform. Our capabilities include onboarding and servicing QC, full credit and compliance underwriting, income verification, AB130 reporting, Corporate Advance (Claims process) invoice reconciliation, and automated chain of assignment reviews, just to name a few. We also provide doc-to-data validation, state audit and HMDA reviews, appraisal QA/QC, loss mitigation milestone reporting, and HECM Claim 22 assignment reviews. From document extraction, indexing, versioning, and bookmarking to securitization and modification reviews, our platform drives efficiency and accuracy. With advanced curative automation and flexible support for custom applications, One Diligence empowers institutions to reduce risk, improve turnaround times, and scale operations with confidence. For a demo of the platform, contact Charles Runyon.”

“The Biggest Non-Agency Market in History Is Coming. Don't Get Left Behind. The projections are impressive: $400+ billion in originations. 1 in 5 loans going non-Agency. Non-QM projected at $150B–$180B. Home Equity at $150B. RTL at $50B. The numbers are staggering, and the window to position yourself is right now. Deephaven Mortgage is the one investor built for this moment. Full non-QM suite. Full equity solutions including Digital HELOCs and a full RTL suite up to $15 million. One platform. One partner. Unlimited opportunity. Your competition is scrambling to piece together a non-Agency strategy. You can have the whole thing… today. Reach out to Tom Davis, Deephaven's Chief Sales Officer, and get started or visit Deephaven at Become A Partner | Deephaven Mortgage. Big opportunity ahead and Deephaven is building the team to match it. We're hiring Wholesale Account Executives across the nation. Reach out to Tom Davis for a confidential conversation about your future with Deephaven.”

Still paying for multiple mortgage systems? You’re paying too much. 1smtg.com gives brokers 9 core components in one platform: PPE, LOS, POS, CRM, Marketing, E-Sign, Communication, HR, and Frontend tools. $100/month per user. Run pricing, generate proposals in under a minute, and manage your entire pipeline… All in one place! Save Time & Save Money. Visit here.

“Homeowners tapped $205 billion in equity last year. We can help you capture opportunities in this growing market as higher rates continue to reshape borrower demand. Join Arc Home for a live webinar on May 6 at 2pm EST focused on practical strategies to help brokers generate HELOC opportunities through past clients and realtor relationships. We’ll also show why HomeEQ, our digital HELOC, is priced to win in the wholesale space. Special webinar incentive: Register and if you lock a HomeEQ HELOC, you’ll receive $500 fee reduction. All registrants will receive a promo code and details following the webinar. Or contact Lee Malone for a private program review and demo of our digital process.”

Do you know how many of your borrowers refinanced with another lender? For most, the honest answer is no, not until year-end, when borrower churn finally shows up as a recap instead of a warning. By then the pattern has been repeating for twelve months and it's too late to react. The team at Model Match built Borrower Retention to end the annual surprise. It tracks every property in a loan officer's book automatically, surfaces how many loans missed and what those loans were worth, and shows exactly who captured them by lender, originator, and loan type across any date range. Always on, always monitoring. And it's surgical. Model Match clears the noise that second-position loans add to churn rates, delivering the cleanest retention view available anywhere. No handwaving. No annual recap. Just the signal. Borrower Retention is live inside Model Match alongside a simplified experience across loan officers, agents, offices, and companies. Plus, introducing Market Signals: visibility into pipeline activity from application to originated in any market, covering roughly one in every two U.S. mortgages. Chrisman readers get 30 days free. Click here to see who's capturing your borrowers.

Lottery: a tax on people who don’t know math

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“A French maid, foreign chef.

A big house with king-sized bed.

You had enough, you ship them out.

The dollar's up, down, you better buy the pound.”

So sang AC/DC. I know that this is a commentary on mortgage banking, but our business touches money, as do our clients, and the intersection of psychology and financial planning is interesting especially for MLOs. Who hasn’t been in a lunchroom at some point in their career, and heard, “What would you do if you won?” “Well, I wouldn’t be here tomorrow…”

Want something where you can increasingly lean into the “near miss” effect, the vividness of massive jackpots, and the small-but-potent thrill of possibility that nudges people to overweight infinitesimal odds, making a transaction feel less like a financial decision and more like a brief, affordable daydream with a receipt? Buy a lottery ticket! State lottery ticket sales surged from $52.8 billion to $104.7 billion between fiscal year 2008 and 2024, respectively, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with prize payouts rising even faster (up 118 percent to $70.2 billion) while net state revenue grew a more modest 68 percent to $34.5 billion (all unadjusted for inflation), reflecting a steady shift toward returning a larger share to players and trimming the government’s take.

By 2024, states like Virginia were paying out as much as 80 percent of ticket sales in prizes, leading the nation, followed by Kentucky at 75 percent and several others clustered at 74 percent, while the biggest sales volumes came from heavyweights like California, New York, Florida, and Texas, each topping $8 billion annually, even as newer entrants like Arkansas, Wyoming, and Mississippi together brought in $1.1 billion and five holdouts (Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah) still abstained entirely; psychologically, the growth isn’t hard to explain, since lotteries (as noted above) increasingly lean into the “near miss” effect, the vividness of massive jackpots, and the small-but-potent thrill of possibility that nudges people to overweight infinitesimal odds, making a ticket feel less like a financial decision and more like a brief, affordable daydream with a receipt.

Capital markets: FHA and VA delinquency numbers

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One way to reduce inflation is to measure it some other way, and there is talk of that with the current Administration. Meanwhile, Kevin Warsh, nominee for U.S. Federal Reserve Chair, has emphasized the Federal Reserve's role in supporting the "economic statecraft agenda" led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to maintain the U.S.' global economic position. Warsh highlighted the importance of ensuring a safe financial system amid global rivalry, particularly with China. How this may impact interest rates remains to be seen.

Mortgage rates have bounced around within their recent range rather than making a big directional move. Despite oil prices climbing toward $100 per barrel amid a prolonged U.S.–Iran standoff and continued disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, broader financial markets (and notably, U.S. Treasuries) have shown a notably muted response. Why? Well, oil remains below more extreme levels, the persistent uncertainty discourages aggressive positioning, and continued resilience in U.S. economic data leaves investors weighing the competing risks of inflation versus slowing growth. Sustained strength in oil prices, equities, and underlying economic activity may continue to limit the market’s willingness to price in meaningful rate cuts absent a clear deterioration in growth. With only minimal Fed easing priced into markets, the front end of the Treasury curve could attract dip buyers. Markets have struggled to convincingly price in rate hikes for 2026 (despite repeated attempts) and have instead oscillated within a narrow range of modest cuts.

We’ve seen a rise in severe delinquencies among FHA and VA borrowers, now well above pre-2020 norms, revealing meaningful geographic concentration that has direct implications for future mortgage pool buyouts. States like Louisiana, Maryland, Georgia, and Illinois stand out on the FHA side, and Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida lead in VA performance deterioration. These elevated delinquency rates, combined with high 3-month roll rates in many of the same states, signal a pipeline of loans increasingly at risk of transitioning into serious delinquency, particularly in FHA pools where credit vulnerability is more pronounced. Investors and servicers understand the importance of geographic exposure within pools, as concentrations in higher-risk states are likely to drive elevated buyout activity and performance divergence.

The federal bank regulatory agencies yesterday jointly finalized a rule to modify the community bank leverage ratio consistent with existing statutory authority. This change will provide community banks with greater flexibility to use a simpler measure of capital adequacy and reduce regulatory burden. The final rule takes into account the unique business models and risk profiles of community banks and is being adopted without change from the proposal issued in November 2025. The rule will lower the community bank leverage ratio from nine percent to eight percent, which will provide more flexibility for community banks to opt into the framework, and also extends the grace period from two quarters to four quarters for a community bank that temporarily falls out of compliance.

The leverage ratio framework continues to simplify regulatory capital requirements for community banks by allowing them to adopt a relatively simple leverage ratio to measure capital adequacy, rather than calculating and reporting risk-based capital ratios. Community banks that opt into the framework will be subject to a capital requirement that continues to promote safety and soundness. Under the framework, banks must maintain a leverage ratio that is significantly higher than the leverage ratio standard otherwise applicable to community banks. The changes will take effect on July 1, 2026.

Final April University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment is the only meaningful scheduled data today and will be released later this morning. The prior reading was extremely weak (record-low), which means this reading will likely be revised up from the preliminary release. Survey responses collected since the ceasefire will likely be stronger, as lower oil prices and calmer financial markets allay consumers’ worries. Investors will closely pay attention to 1-year and 5-year inflation expectations, which in this environment matter more than headline sentiment for rates. We begin the day with Agency MBS prices little changed from Thursday’s close, the 2-year yielding 3.82, and the 10-year yielding 4.31 after closing yesterday at 4.32 percent.

A little five-year-old girl was usually driven to school by her grandad, but one day he had a bad cold, so her grandmother took her instead.

That night, the little girl told her parents, "The drive with Gramma was really different today."

"Oh? What made it different?" they asked.

"Well," she said, "with Gramma, we didn't see a single numb nuts, blind lady, or freakin' moron on the road the whole time.”

Visit www.ChrismanCommentary.com for more information on our industry partners, access archived commentaries, or subscribe to the Daily Mortgage News and Commentary. You can also explore the Chrisman Marketplace, a centralized hub connecting mortgage professionals with trusted vendors and solutions. If you’re interested, check out my periodic blog on the STRATMOR Group website. This month’s piece is titled, “Mortgage Rates Are Not Random.” The Commentary’s podcast is available on all major platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

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(Market data provided in partnership with MBS Live. For free job postings and to view candidate resumes, visit the Chrisman Job Board. This newsletter is intended for sophisticated mortgage professionals only. There are no paid endorsements by me. For the latest mortgage news, visit Mortgage News Daily. For archived commentaries, or to subscribe, go to www.ChrismanCommentary.com. Copyright 2026 Chrisman LLC. All rights reserved. Paid job & product listings do appear. This report or any portion hereof may not be reprinted, sold, or redistributed without the written consent of Rob Chrisman. The views and opinions in this newsletter are mine alone unless otherwise specifically stated herein.)

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