Feb. 7: UAD 3.6 primer... what every lender should know; Flood policy thoughts; Vendor news; Saturday Spotlight: Kastle, the AI platform
“If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.” Lenders can’t. They work with many loans that “try” but don’t work, and have historically unenviable position of passing along costs of loans that don’t fund onto those loans that do. The surest way to lower costs is to increase pull through, and increase fundings to spread out fixed costs. Efficiency! By informal chatter, 2026 is off to a decent start. Sure enough, according to Curinos’ new proprietary application index, January 2026 funded mortgage volume increased 15 percent YoY but decreased 23 percent MoM. “In the Retail channel, funded volume increased 32 percent YoY and decreased 28 percent MoM. The average 30-year conforming retail funded rate in January 2026 was 6.16, little changed from December 2025 but 59bps lower than the same month last year. (Curinos sources a statistically significant data set directly from lenders to produce these benchmark figures. We drill into this data further here.)”
Saturday Spotlight: Kastle
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“The most deployed AI agent in the mortgage industry”
Kastle is an AI platform built specifically for mortgage lenders and servicers to deploy AI agents across their operations. FDIC-insured banks and large IMBs use Kastle to automate customer interactions in sales, customer service, and collections with fully compliant AI agents.
Kastle is already integrated with major systems of records such as ICE MSP, consumer direct CRMs, and all major contact center platforms. Kastle is backed by some of the largest investors in Silicon Valley including Y Combinator and Emergence Capital. Since launch, Kastle’s AI agents have handled millions of borrower calls and processed more than $300M in cash transactions for mortgage lenders. The company has also won top industry recognition, including the Digital Mortgage Conference Innovation Challenge and LendingTree’s Innovation Summit.
Lenders are building their AI workforce on Kastle using natural language.
Current use cases include agents for AI Customer service agents to resolve borrower inquiries across voice, email, and webchat, AI Collections agents to reduce delinquency rates, AI Loan officer assistants to generate warm transfers and automate manual follow-ups, and AI Quality Assurance Agents to automate manual call and document QC. Kastle’s platform allows lenders to modernize operations, improve borrower experience, and implement AI in a safe, compliant, and cost-effective way.
What we are most proud of is how deeply we partner with our customers.
We see ourselves as an extension of their AI team—spending time onsite, working shoulder-to-shoulder, and aligning around outcomes. In our early days, we even moved the entire company to Tempe from San Francisco to help a top five mortgage lender go live, and that same ethos of customer commitment continues today.
If you are looking to reduce your cost to fund and service loans, connect with us to design a one-year roadmap for successfully deploying AI across your operations.
(For more information on having your firm’s extracurricular activities, employee growth, and your charitable side featured, contact Chrisman LLC’s Anjelica Nixt.)
Flood insurance & policy options… the weather isn’t going away
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Joe Uzee, President of the Mortgage Lending Division at Gulf Coast Bank & Trust, is knee-deep in seeing that is happening in the realm of flood insurance.
“You have always kept the industry informed about how increased insurance premiums, due to climate change/risk, has affected home affordability. Many of your recent commentaries stress this again. Of course, as recently as last year this was referred to as Global Warming, not sure how many would agree about warming recently!
“The fact remains that whether this is climate change or simply weather cycles, more and more Americans across the country are experiencing losses due to natural disasters. You know that I have been vocal on this issue. I am sharing with you the white paper that was just released by GNO Inc.’s Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance, CSFI. This has been a well-thought-out initiative with contributors from across the country and industry lines. Bill Nelson, EVP Secondary/Standard Mortgage and Chairman of MBA’s MAA, and I have given input to this white paper from the mortgage perspective. This may not be the solution supported by all and we all know the hurdles ahead to get things through our lawmakers. However, the timing is right since affordability is on the mind of all right now and this is a solution that should be considered.
“Ahead of NFIP's reauthorization deadline and the imminent winter storm, CSFI has officially released our white paper. "Policy Options for a Natural Catastrophe Insurance Program" is now live, presenting options for national multi-peril approaches. Simultaneously, 34 states were expected to be affected by snow and ice recently, and 14 states were quickly under emergency declarations.
UAD 3.6 primer for lenders: why is November 2 important?
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Some companies, like PennyMac and Newrez, have sent bulletins out stating that they are currently not participating in this program.
“Please note that Newrez is not currently participating in Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) version 3.6 with either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Therefore, Newrez will not purchase loans with appraisal reports in the UAD 3.6 format for all product offerings. Newrez will provide an update as to when we will begin to accept the new version once it is available.”
“This is a reminder that Pennymac is not currently participating in Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) version 3.6 with either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Pennymac will not purchase loans with appraisal reports in the UAD 3.6 format for all product offerings. This includes transferred appraisal reports. Pennymac will notify clients at a future date when we will officially begin purchasing loans with appraisals and transferred appraisals in the UAD 3.6 format.”
So… what gives? I asked Michael Simmons, co-president of AXIS AMC, for the current status and his thoughts about the changes facing appraisers, and lenders, in the valuation sector.
“Rob, you asked if I could help your readership understand the depth and breadth of changes that are occurring in the residential appraisal field. I’m happy to try. I’ll do my best to stay at 35,000 feet and avoid the granular, appraisal-centric details that might cloud the bigger picture of how and what these changes portend. (I’ve included a couple of links at the end of this column that will take your readers to Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s websites for those interested in a more robust exposition of the restructuring of residential appraising.) Let’s begin.
“There is a tectonic shift that’s taking place in the appraisal space right now, and it promises to reverberate through every nook and cranny of the lending world. Mortgage brokers, direct lenders, independent mortgage bankers, banks, credit unions, investors, underwriters, reviewers, state review boards (and their investigators), AMCs, appraisal educators, plus technology and software providers are all impacted in substantive ways.
“On November 2nd of 2026, all appraisals, to be eligible for sale to Fannie and Freddie, must be submitted in UAD (Uniform Appraisal Dataset) 3.6 format. (While both FHA and VA have indicated they will ‘support’ UAD 3.6, they have not stated they will uniformly adopt all the changes, nor will November 2nd necessarily be their trigger date). UAD 3.6 is a designation that, essentially, re-defines the data collection process and the reporting format. What it does NOT do is change the appraiser’s responsibility to analyze the data and develop their opinion of value. What it will do is expand the tools an appraiser will have at their disposal and the opportunities to participate in additional assignments (property data collection, hybrid reports, etc.)
“Some quick history. Some 8 or so years ago, an initiative to develop an enhanced data collection process mixed with more sophisticated technology (some of which didn’t exactly exist at the time) was begun under the auspices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This represented the root system for the vision of modernizing the appraisal process. Remember, Fannie and Freddie don’t make loans, they buy them so they are better able to identify and reduce risk in collateral lending.
“UAD 3.6 represents the transition to an overall framework for residential appraising. One report format, uniform in structure and connected by context. A huge plus for lenders, reviewers, and consumers to know where to look for information on a property. Hollywood would say: ‘One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness, bind them...’
“The promise is that clarity, efficiency, and a true focus on discrete data (this type of data is often used in real estate and property appraisal to quantify specific characteristics or features that can be counted) can provide a shield against potential bias for those who can master the new incantations … and perhaps even a spell to reduce liability for appraisers and lenders alike. The expectation is a faster process, a conquering of the grail quest to reach interoperability ( the ability of products or systems to work (i.e., communicate) with each other.
“Given that current level of knowledge, experience, and resources vary greatly between the various participants in lending (i.e., large banking institutions, small banks and credits unions, large independent mortgage bankers, smaller IMBs down to mortgage brokers who constitute a significant portion of today’s loan volume), the educational training component of understanding and adapting to the new tech solutions will be an unavoidable burden. But this new format will improve the ability to read and understand the appraisal.
“The need to invest in new technology like enhanced mobile property data collection apps that can capture 1200-1500 (or more) data points versus a typical 250 – 300 that appraisers historically have collected in their inspections, computer vision tools that can support, or reveal, data that has never been available until now are just two examples. The ability of the appraiser to analyze from competing market areas, and not just limited to a ‘neighborhood’ (now an outdated term by the way), by defining and describing the subject property and having technology provide a deeper bucket of data strengthens a lender’s decision to lend and a consumer’s commitment to invest.
“The belief is that this will also reduce the number of revision requests from lenders, improve the underwriter’s confidence in decisioning, and provide consumers a document bereft of acronyms and other ‘secret language’ that we all tend to employ in our respect fields to appear powerful and special. This is a gargantuan task. Evolutionary really. Appraisers must accept and digest the changes - and our technology wizards must design tools specific for each stakeholder (at no small expense in cost and resources).
“I’ve spoken with many appraisers as well as many Chief Appraisers I know and respect about the challenges our industry faces. They (collectively) feel that the rumor of the demise of the appraisal profession is … premature. While there is without a doubt concern, resistance, and for some, outright rejection of these changes that come with UAD 3.6, appraisers and appraising will endure. Why? Because appraisers excel at analysis, and they will see the opportunities in front of them. They will rise to the occasion and see technology as an aid, not an enemy. Much the same as lenders will do by embracing technology to become more efficient, as their loan originators will do by evolving their skill set and unique abilities to continue to enjoy trust with their customers. My experience and belief is that the human condition is still not replicable and in an even higher demand.”
Mike wrapped up with, “Change is many things to us all, but in the end, it is (unlike Thanos) … inevitable. I’m reminded of the line in that song The Eye by Brandi Carlile; ‘You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you’re standing in the eye,’ We all need to find the eye. Here are those links I spoke of: https://sf.freddiemac.com/docs/pdf/announcement_uad_january-2026.pdf,
https://singlefamily.fanniemae.com/delivering/uniform-mortgage-data-program/uniform-appraisal-dataset, and https://sf.freddiemac.com/tools-learning/uniform-mortgage-data-program/uad.” Thank you very much, Michael.
Vendor news from across our biz
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You’d be hard-pressed, to say the least, to find a lender that does everything by itself with no outside services. Chrisman LLC has a good listing of who’s who in the zoo, broken down by type of product. Let’s play some catch up and take a random look at who’s doing what.
LenderLogix has expanded its LiteSpeed point-of-sale (POS) platform with LiteSpeed eSign, a fully native eSignature experience that allows borrowers and loan teams to sign documents without leaving the POS or Encompass®. The new capability eliminates third-party “envelopes” and manual uploads by enabling in-portal signing with automatic eFolder storage and full audit trails.
Lender Price announced AILA Builder: Building on the success of AILA (Artificial Intelligence Loan Assistant), Lender Price introduced AILA Builder, a breakthrough solution that redefines how lending teams design and deploy modern workflows. With AILA Builder, lenders, banks, and credit unions can create fully custom user interfaces and build tailored mortgage pricing engines without writing a single line of code. It sets an industry benchmark for speed, flexibility, and intelligent customization, empowering institutions to innovate on their own terms.
Preparing for the 2026 UAD 3.6 changes? Now is the perfect time to upgrade. Every TOTAL bundle from Cotality is on sale during December. Regardless of which bundle you choose, you'll still get legendary TOTAL desktop, TOTAL For Mobile for mobile sketching, and top-notch US-based live support.
Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc. (DMI), a leading mortgage subservicing company, announced it has received the ISO/IEC 27001 certification from NSF International Strategic Registrations (NSF-ISR), an NSF company. Achieving this certification demonstrates that Dovenmuehle has established and maintains comprehensive, independently verified controls to identify, assess and mitigate data security risks across its operations. This accomplishment reflects DMI’s continued efforts to strengthen its technology foundation, governance practices, and risk management framework, underscoring the company’s commitment to providing secure, compliant servicing solutions for its clients.
Land Gorilla, the leading construction loan management platform provider and ICE Silver Partner announced an enhanced integration with Encompass® by ICE Mortgage Technology. This modern framework enables industry participants to integrate into ICE solutions and provide their services to loan originators through secure API-enabled technology. The new integration provides mortgage lenders with greater control over the data exchanged between Encompass and Land Gorilla, making transfers more seamless and efficient. The shift to the Encompass Partner Connect (EPC) framework also ensures long-term compatibility with ongoing updates from ICE Mortgage Technology and Land Gorilla.
At the end of the college year, a star football player celebrated by attending a late-night campus party.
Soon after arriving, he became captivated by a beautiful coed and eased into a conversation with her by asking if she met many any "potential dates" at the party.
"Oh, I'm much more attracted to the strong academic types than to the party animals," she said. "What's your G.P.A.?"
Grinning from ear to ear, the jock boasted, "I get about 25 in the city and 40 on the highway."
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, “Helping Borrowers in a Market Defined by Complexity and Change.” 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.)