Feb. 13: LO jobs; LOS, guideline, AI search, non-QM pricing products; FSBO.com acquired; thoughts on measuring creditworthiness
Here at San Diego’s MCT Exchange 2026, one topic is, as it is at every mortgage conference, is AI. More specifically, using artificial intelligence to leverage the strengths of existing employees but certainly setting up “guard rails” in rolling it out, and in finite chunks rather than company-wide all at once. Another topic is the ramp up of non-QM in the primary and secondary markets. The book of business is performing well, although is definitely not “cookie cutter”: many loans have pricing and guideline exceptions, especially in the “soft” guidelines. Of course, another subject is the continued, varied headlines coming out of the Trump Administration impacting the markets, pipelines, as well as borrower psychology & cancelled purchase contracts. On today’s Last Word at 10AM PT, sponsored by TRUE, January payroll data will be dissected and what the numbers mean for Fed policy, MBS spreads, and whether your Q1 volume window just got wider or narrower. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are Sponsored by Cenlar. Cenlar supports lenders and investors with scalable, best-in-class loan servicing built for today’s complex market. From compliance to customer experience, Cenlar helps portfolios perform better, borrowers stay supported, and servicers focus on growth. We’re proud to partner with a true industry leader. Hear an interview with Ivy Risk Strategies’ Lisa Holt on how rethinking risk around fewer insurance purchases, stronger human connection, and data-driven feedback loops challenge traditional industry assumptions and help lenders and real estate leaders prepare for 2026 with smarter, more intuitive decisions at scale.)
Employment and transitions
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Evergreen Home Loans™ continues its growth, national expansion and 1000-year plan with the promotion of two internal leaders to Divisional Manager roles. Joe Moley and Brett Evertz’s promotions reflect Evergreen’s commitment to intentional growth. In their new roles, Moley and Evertz will play a key role in driving internal employee growth, supporting our company’s national expansion, and coaching, mentoring, and strengthening teams through strategic leadership. Evergreen grows by developing leaders from within and creating opportunities for long-term careers. By prioritizing leadership readiness and future-focused planning, the company is building the depth needed to support expansion across new and existing markets. With this momentum, Evergreen is connecting with experienced loan officers who are looking to contribute to a people-first organization. To learn more, visit discoverEHL.com or reach out to Todd Miles, EVP of Production Growth.
“Do Your Spring Cleaning Before the Rush Hits. The smartest producers know that to dominate the Spring market, you have to clean up your operations now. Moving to Canopy Mortgage is the ultimate spring cleaning for your business: we strip away the corporate bloat, middle management layers, and clunky legacy software that clutter your P&L. By engineering out the inefficiency with our proprietary NANO technology, we run at a 34 percent lower cost to fund than the industry average. Don’t enter the busiest season of the year, weighed down by junk fees and slow processes. Clear the path for higher volume, sharper rates, and better margins today so you are ready to execute when the market turns. Click Here to see why a cleaner model means a more profitable Spring or call 385-273-0404.”
“You’re invited to learn how Fairway Home Mortgage supports loan officers and branch managers in building successful, sustainable mortgage careers. Tuesday February 24th at 12est/11cst, join us for an anonymous virtual meeting that takes you behind the curtain with Fairway’s executive team and other leaders. You’ll get an inside look at what makes Fairway a thriving independent mortgage bank, and how its platform, technology, culture, and leadership are designed to help professionals succeed on their mortgage journey. This is a unique opportunity to listen, learn, and ask questions in a confidential setting. We hope you’ll join us. Feb 24 Fairway Day.”
Congratulations to longtime industry veteran Steven Plaisance who has joined Rate as Senior Vice President of Capital Markets leading Institutional Sales. He takes over for another longtime industry veteran, Sergio Murer, who retired after a stellar career.
National mortgage lender Waterstone Mortgage Corporation announced the promotions of Casey Seefeldt to Vice President – Capital Markets, Melissa Wagner to Vice President – Human Resources, Scott Howard to Director – Information Security, and Zach McCarthy to Director – Financial Planning & Analysis. Congratulations to all!
The Chrisman Job Board is the go-to platform for employment opportunities across the mortgage industry. For employers, adding a job listing is easy. Simply create an account and drop in your existing application link, or forward the details to our team and we’ll take care of it for you. For job seekers, joining our Talent Community is completely free. Upload your resume to be visible to hiring companies across the industry and stay connected to new opportunities as they go live.
Products, services, and software for brokers and lenders
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QC works as an early warning system, but it only creates value when findings are recognized, validated, and turned into action. As agency expectations continue to shift, lenders are being asked to show not just findings, but proof of a thoughtful response. Join Indecomm in March for a QC Fireside Chat with Alicia Gazotti, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Genway Mortgage, as she shares how QC supports proactive risk management across the organization. The conversation will cover how to turn QC data into actionable remediation plans, align pre-fund and post-close findings, maintain consistent taxonomies, and use calibration, reporting, and trusted QC partnerships to drive accountability. Designed for QC, risk, and compliance leaders, this session focuses on strengthening what QC already does best and ensuring the right signals lead to the right decisions. Register to join today!
“’Mortgage Rates Today’ was searched 35.7 million times last month, driving 44,000+ clicks to one lender’s website. Others: <3,000. The good news? AI Search + SEO level the playing field, so you don’t need a massive budget to compete. RankWriters is the industry’s go-to team for AI Search + SEO, and we can share real client analytics to set clear expectations. Contact us for your click-gap snapshot, or DIY with our free eBook: The Great Equalizer: AI & SEO Playbook.”
Compliant loan servicing is within reach! The timing couldn’t be clearer. With Cenlar’s acquisition by PennyMac making headlines, servicers are re-evaluating how much control they truly have over their portfolios. One message is rising above the noise: bringing servicing in-house is no longer optional… it’s a strategic imperative. A unified, seven-systems-in-one platform makes that shift achievable. MortgageFlex delivers Enterprise Loan Servicing, a modern borrower portal, default and hardship management, FEMA assistance, construction management, real-time reporting, and full imaging, fully integrated in a secure, Azure-based, API-driven environment. By automating workflows across all loan types, lenders gain efficiency, transparency, compliance confidence, and control that fragmented legacy systems simply can’t provide. With margins tight and customer experience a competitive differentiator, the future belongs to servicers who take ownership of both their process and their borrowers. Bring it home. Visit MortgageFlex at Booth 504 in Dallas.
You ever notice how a “quick question” can derail a whole file? You just need to confirm one guideline detail. Suddenly you have five tabs open, two PDFs downloading, Slack messages flying, and you are still not totally sure you found the right version. That is why Lender Toolkit built Guideline Agent. This is not Silicon Valley AI built by people who have never touched a loan file. This is part of a Responsible Mortgage AI approach, guided by mortgage professionals who understand guidelines, compliance, and real world workflows. Guideline Agent helps your team ask guideline questions in plain language and get clear, structured answers fast. It is not trying to run your loans. It just helps with one very specific pain point. You can try it for free, and if you are heading to ICE Experience, book a meeting with Lender Toolkit to see how this fits into a full end to end Encompass optimization strategy. Start with Guideline Agent. Then see the bigger picture in person.
This Valentine’s Day, give processors, underwriters, and ops leaders something they’ll actually love. Processors and underwriters don’t need more chocolates. They need fewer workarounds. Elphi is the only LOS that lets lenders control their data, without code. Build and change workflows, manage and create data fields instantly, configure the UI around fulfillment, and control integrations based on how your operation actually runs. No vendor bottlenecks. No dev tickets. No waiting for permission. My LOS. My Rules. And because it is Valentine’s Day, we made a playful gift shop for the mortgage ops heroes who keep loans moving. Learn more.
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.
Thought leadership: credit scoring changes
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Michele Bodda has some thoughts on how the real shift in mortgage credit is not about replacing one score with another. It is about expanding what counts. Michele Bodda argues that the industry has relied on decades old scoring mechanics while consumer financial behavior has fundamentally changed. Rent payments, utilities, cash flow data, and recurring obligations now offer a more precise picture of repayment capacity. For lenders, the decision is no longer whether alternative data exists. It is whether to use it to sharpen risk models and responsibly expand access. As affordability pressures intensify and renter demand builds, modernization becomes both a competitive strategy and obligation. Michele makes the case for why this inflection point cannot be ignored and how we measure creditworthiness.
FSBO.com, Nexa’s Mike Kortas, and Homepie
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FSBO.com, one of the longest standing “For Sale by Owner” platforms in the United States, announced a new chapter in its evolution following its acquisition by a newly formed ownership group led by Mike Kortas, Founder and CEO of NEXA Lending, alongside strategic partners including entrepreneur Brad Rice, CEO of Homepie, Inc.
“The new ownership group plans a full modernization of the FSBO.com platform bringing it in line with standards for usability, transparency, and consumer empowerment, while preserving the spirit of independence that made FSBO.com a trusted name… The redesigned FSBO.com experience will focus on helping homeowners and buyers navigate transactions with confidence through what the team describes as a guided, agentic AI experience.
“The platform will simplify purchase contracts into plain-language steps, guide buyers and sellers through negotiations collaboratively, clarify timelines, responsibilities, and next steps, and reduce friction without removing autonomy. The result is a home-selling and buying experience that allows consumers to transact directly often saving thousands of dollars in commissions while still feeling supported throughout the process.”
Capital markets: more news on inflation drives rates
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The private residential mortgage market is entering a new phase. MAXEX and Tradeweb have announced a strategic investment and commercial partnership to advance the institutional market for non-agency residential mortgage loans. For lenders, this means expanded access to institutional capital, deeper private credit liquidity, centralized clearing, and more efficient residential loan execution, all through one platform. Looking to access deeper institutional liquidity? Schedule a conversation with MAXEX today.
MIAC Analytics continues to lead the non-QM pricing solutions with a fully integrated rate sheet, bulk market and securitization execution expertise and proven experience. Originators can compare their pricing against the competitors and know at what levels they can transact at in the bulk market. To price accurately requires complex non-QM prepayment and credit models informed with real price executions in both rate sheet and bulk markets. And bulk market participants can compare bulk market executions against securitization executions with MIAC Analytics BondAgent™ waterfall and structuring software tools. Learn how to lead in the non-QM market with the industry non-QM analytical and pricing solutions leader, MIAC Analytics.
With respect to the bond market, mortgage rates slipped back down in this week’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey from Freddie Mac: For the week ending February 12, the 30- and 15-year mortgage rates declined 2-basis points and 6-basis points, respectively, to 6.09 percent and 5.44 percent, 78-basis points and 65-basis points lower from a year ago. It’s been a whipsaw week in the bond markets: after the market sold off in response to receiving a very robust jobs number on Wednesday, concerns over technology company profits and weakness in commodities yesterday caused a rally that retraced all of it and then some.
The rally sent yields on the 5-year note and longer tenors to fresh lows for the month with the 30-year yield finishing at its lowest level since early December. The strong showing on Thursday was aided by an impressive 30-year bond auction, which made for a great finish to this week's otherwise mixed auction slate after it came on the heels of a poor 10-year auction.
The NAR reported existing home sales in January dropped 8.4 percent to a 3.91 million annualized pace, likely pressured by poor weather from Winter Storm Fern, though the broader trend shows gradual improvement supported by mortgage rates that have declined about 80 basis points over the past year to 6.1 percent and by moderating price growth, with median prices up just 0.9 percent. Still, limited supply, with inventory at 1.22 million homes and well below pre-pandemic norms, continues to underpin modest price appreciation, suggesting that while affordability may improve at the margins and lift sales slightly in coming months, a meaningful rebound in housing activity remains distant.
Today’s lone data point ahead of the long weekend is the previously delayed January Consumer Price Index report. Inflation was expected to have slowed in January, but the government shutdown from last year interrupted collection of some price surveys, which economists say will make CPI look unrealistically low; CPI should move higher in April when the government’s statisticians fill the gaps in the data. Accordingly, headline (+.2 percent, +2.4 percent y-o-y) and core (+.3 percent, +2.5 percent y-o-y) both increased versus registering 0.3 percent month-over-month and 2.4 percent year-over-year previously. We begin Friday with Agency MBS prices better by about .125 from Thursday’s close and improved on the week, the 2-year yielding 3.41, and the 10-year yielding 4.07 after closing yesterday at 4.10 percent. (There will be no Commentary on Monday due to the President’s Day Holiday.)
In the late 19th century, a New England couple wed. Joshua was a whaler and his ship was sailing a month after their nuptials to the South Pacific. He would be gone for almost three years.
There were quite a few ships that passed through where his ship was based so they were able to send letters to each other. After he has been gone for about six months Joshua wrote, “Esther, I love you deeply and with great anticipation look to when we can continue consummating our marriage and start a family. Confess to you I must. There are many beautiful and exotic young women here that are challenging my devotion to you my love, forever yours Joshua.”
Several months later Joshua received a parcel from a passing ship. It contained an accordion and a letter. “My beloved husband, your openness and honesty regarding the most difficult environment you are in has only increased my love, and longing, for you. When distracted by temptation, take the time to learn how to play this accordion and think of me and our future conjoining in love. Waiting desperately, Esther.”
Two years after he received the accordion, Joshua’s ship came home. He practically sprinted through the town to his home and his wife.
“Oh Esther,” he gasped as he held her in his arms. “Please let us go upstairs and devote ourselves to each other as we start our family.”
Esther, leaned back in his arms, looked at him, and said, “First, let me hear you play the accordion.”
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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.)