Sep. 27: Home buying strategy may be changing; AI and boardrooms; Third-party provider news runs the gamut
Who can focus on mortgages when it’s… Fat Bear Week?! They’re all trying to consume as many calories as possible ahead of hibernation. Place your bets! Meanwhile, anyone betting on United States farmers prospering by raising and selling soybeans may not come out ahead. Fox News reports that rural America is starting to see huge financial losses from tariff policies, and President Trump has mentioned aid package to farmers in the heartland. China Bought $12.6 billion in U.S. soybeans last year. Now, it’s $0, and the Chinese are buying soybeans from other countries and waiting for resolution on tariffs. I mention this because a) I know plenty of lenders who do USDA loans and/or work in rural areas of places like Iowa and may be impacted, b) my own family has an ag background and all they wanted was to sell their production at market prices, and c) I’ve already received a few notes about taxpayer money (but remember that it may be tariff income that is used). Politics and trade policies aside, lenders and underwriters deal purely with borrower and property facts and money flows, and are keenly aware of changes to income and economic stability, so hopefully the situation is corrected!
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I have served as a director on a number of boards, and you quickly find out that they are living, breathing entities. Some have plenty of members from other industries, some tend toward having representatives from businesses close to theirs. I bring this up because artificial intelligence (AI) is coming on strong, and how boards deal with it is important, even if all the board members don’t understand it. I recently read an article in Nasdaq which had some pointers.
Boards must adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach to AI governance. This includes establishing responsible AI usage policies early, continuously monitoring for risks like model drift and bias, and embedding transparency and accountability into AI systems from the start of deployment. Board members need to develop fluency in AI to provide effective oversight and ask the right questions. This requires daily engagement with AI concepts and hands-on experimentation with AI tools.
Unlike cybersecurity, which focuses on defense against threats, AI offers opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and cost savings. Boards should add AI as a standing agenda item and analyze both its risks and benefits objectively. AI can accelerate board decision-making by surfacing real-time insights from enterprise data, reducing reliance on anecdotal evidence, and enabling faster responses to market shifts. This transformation moves beyond automation to true acceleration of strategic thinking.
AI agents with memory, planning capabilities, and independent action could potentially serve as additional board members within the next one to two years. These AI agents could augment human decision-making and even participate as voting members in limited contexts, though this raises new questions about explainability and liability.
The home buying strategy… she’s a’ changin’
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As home prices swell further out of reach, more buyers are turning to unconventional purchasing strategies. One tactic, co-buying, is increasingly popular with Gen Z-ers (the youngest buyers) according to a recent study although critics ask, “What does a 20-year-old care about buying a house?”
Unlike the “Baby Boomer” generation which are those born between 1946 and 1964, or 18 years, Gen-Z are those born between 1997 to 2012, or 15 years. They’re between 13 and 17 years old. About one-third of adult Gen Z-ers (those 18 to 27 years old) are open to pooling funds and purchasing a home with friends or family, according to the 2025 home-buyer report from National MI, and FirstHome IQ, a nonprofit focused on financial literacy and home-buyer education. “Gen Z is embracing alternative strategies more enthusiastically than their millennial counterparts,” the report notes, with only 18 percent of millennials saying they are open to the co-buying strategy.
Co-buyers are typically friends, family, or romantic partners. For Gen Z buyers, many of whom have little in the way of savings and earn less than older buyers, it’s often a family affair. About a quarter of Gen Z homeowners purchased homes with their parents, according to a Bank of America report released in June, while 22 percent bought their homes with siblings, an increase from 12 percent in 2024 and 4 percent in 2023.
Because co-buying involves two or more people splitting the responsibilities of purchasing, maintaining, and living in a home, the arrangements present all kinds of challenges. CoBuy, the makers of the co-buying planning app Co-ownerOS, surveyed co-owners and found that 94 percent of respondents said they needed help with co-owner agreements, which carefully outline the terms of buying and living together. Record keeping and exit strategies were identified as major pain points.
Other home-buying strategies for people struggling to enter the market include renting out portions of properties, buying fixer-uppers, and shopping in more affordable neighborhoods that may not be the buyers’ top choices, according to the National MI report. Like co-buying, all of these approaches are more popular with Gen Z-ers than millennials.
The New York Times’ Vince Dixon writes, “A recent survey found Gen Z to be more open to co-buying and other creative strategies to facilitate a home purchase.”
Third-party provider/vendor tidbits
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There are some snazzy programs and software for lenders. Let’s take a random look at who’s doing what out there.
Insellerate walked away with the $10,000 LendingTree Innovation Award at this year’s Digital Mortgage Demo Challenge, hosted by National Mortgage News and LendingTree. The spotlight was on AIthena, Insellerate’s AI-powered voice assistant, which impressed judges with its real-time lead scoring (89.4% accuracy on first call), coaching capabilities, and autonomous workflow execution. CEO Josh Friend described AIthena not as a typical voice assistant, but as an “Aigentic™,” an intelligent, autonomous agent helping lenders close more loans, and reduce costs.
Secure Insight is now providing financial strength ratings on all title underwriters to provide additional risk data for lenders, allowing them to meet current GSE and secondary market guidelines for appropriate third-party vendor management. Utilizing independent industry auditor data, Secure Insight's Closing Guard populates its risk profile reports with this stability assessment and adjusts the rating when and if it changes. This enhancement is the latest in a series of technology and process overhauls to provide greater depth of analysis and a better user experience for Closing Guard clients. For more information contact Amanda Padd, CRO.
GALLUS is the business intelligence platform purpose-built for mortgage lenders and servicers. It pulls together your most important data from loan origination, capital markets, accounting, and servicing and turns it into clean, automated dashboards. No more waiting days for reports or stitching together data from a dozen systems. GALLUS gives you real-time visibility into your pipeline, gain-on-sale, warehouse usage, financials, and loan officer performance, all in one place. And it's easy to use: if you can Google, you can use Gallus. To learn more, reach out to hello@gallusinsights.com or visit www.gallusinsights.com
The Hispanic Organization of Mortgage Experts (HOME) just announced two industry-first tools designed to transform access to homeownership for Hispanic and Latino families: HOME Certified, the first bilingual mortgage learning management system, training and certifying loan officers to better serve Hispanic and Latino borrowers, who are projected to drive 70% of U.S. homeownership growth over the next 20 years. Wholesale Search, an AI-powered platform that scans 150 wholesale lenders and instantly matches borrowers with the right lender by loan type, rate, closing speed, language support, and tech compatibility. This launch comes at a pivotal moment: while HUD recently announced an “English-only” initiative eliminating translated housing resources, HOME is doubling down on bilingual access and inclusion. The organization is directly addressing a $2.7 trillion Hispanic buying power market and $240 billion in projected 2026 mortgage originations. Both tools are now live and available to members.
MISMO is seeking public comment on the new Version 3.6.2 MISMO Reference Model, which includes new data points, containers, and enumerations to support MISMO work products and broader mortgage industry needs. The 30-day public comment period will remain open through today.
MISMO® announced the publication of the SMART Doc® V3 eHELOC Specification, helping lenders and investors that are interested in gaining efficiencies and trust while originating, buying, and servicing HELOCs,” said MISMO Acting President Richard Hill. “The new specification further enables the seamless exchange of HELOC data and documents between trading partners.” This standard was developed to meet requests for natively created electronic documents to support the growth of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). The use of the MISMO SMART Doc provides assurance that loan documents and associated data are consistent, reliable, and unaltered.
Lender Toolkit, reaffirmed its strategic advantage for lenders facing growing compliance complexity, as federal regulators consider nationwide lending standards to replace fragmented state-level rules. "With shifting regulations and rising costs, lenders don't have time for siloed solutions," said Brett Brumley, CEO of Lender Toolkit. "Our cooperative model eliminates vendor fatigue and gives lenders one trusted partner for automation, compliance, and expert support so they can focus on building resilient businesses." For additional information, view the article.
TRAiNED, the AI-powered Mortgage Manufacturing™ platform, has secured a strategic investment from Innovation Works, one of the nation's most active early-stage funders. This partnership accelerates TRAiNED's mission to modernize mortgage processing with AI that delivers measurable ROI without forcing lenders to overhaul their systems. TRAiNED's flagship platform, MORi (Mortgage Origination Responsible Intelligence), uses Actionable Large Language Models (ALLMs) to automate document indexing, income analysis, and real-time loan monitoring. Lenders integrate MORI into existing Loan Origination Systems (LOS) with zero disruption, then see costs fall and loans move faster without the friction.
Friday Harbor, the AI-powered originator assistant, just announced its integration with Encompass® loan origination system (LOS) from ICE Mortgage Technology. Unlike legacy “AI underwriting” tools buried deep in the process, Friday Harbor puts real-time underwriting intelligence directly in the hands of loan officers right at the point of file assembly. Built using ICE’s latest Developer Connect API framework for mortgage technology, the integration enables seamless use of Friday Harbor within the Encompass environment. Details of this integration are available in a new press release.
ZestyAI, the leader in AI-powered property risk analytics, announced a new enhancement to its Severe Convective Storm (SCS) risk suite that enables carriers to adjust model inputs and risk scores based on mitigation efforts. The enhancement gives insurers a structured and scalable way to reflect real-world improvements, such as upgrading roof materials, replacing aging roofs, or addressing structural deficiencies, directly within property-level risk assessments. Carriers can now instantly update risk scores based on verified property data, enabling three key use cases: Reflecting completed mitigation, correcting inaccurate data, and simulating future changes. This mitigation-aware functionality is already in use across ZestyAI’s wildfire products, including Z-FIRE™ and Compliance Pre-Fill, where it supports critical regulatory filings and enables carriers to reflect mitigation actions like defensible space and Class A roofs. Extending this capability to the SCS suite ensures a consistent, carrier-controlled approach to incorporating verified improvements across perils.
Southern Oak Insurance Company, a Florida-based insurer specializing in personal residential property coverage, has adopted ZestyAI’s AI-powered property risk platform to improve visibility into property condition and exposure across its homeowner’s portfolio. Southern Oak is leveraging two core capabilities within ZestyAI’s Z-PROPERTY solution: Digital Roof applies AI to high-resolution aerial imagery to assess roof complexity, materials, and condition, flagging structural vulnerabilities before they become claims. Location Insights evaluates the broader parcel to surface risk factors such as vegetation overhang, yard debris, and secondary structures that can amplify storm losses or drive claim severity.
NotaryCam® announced it has partnered with mortgage subservicing leader Dovenmuehle Mortgage Inc. and Texas-based law firm RUTH RUHL, P.C. to offer remote online notarization (RON) services for loan modification agreements. This collaboration aims to modernize the loss mitigation process by improving efficiency, reducing cost and friction, and enhancing the borrower experience. Using NotaryCam’s secure RON platform, Dovenmuehle and RUTH RUHL, P.C. facilitate compliant, real-time digital notarization of loan modification documents. This eliminates the need for borrowers to attend in-person appointments or coordinate limited-time windows with traditional notaries.
Homesi by Supreme Lending, a new division built to expand Latino homeownership through culturally fluent service, education, and responsible lending. HOMESÍ stands for Home + Sí and launches with a clear goal to triple Supreme’s lending to Latino families by 2026. Latinos have driven a significant share of U.S. homeownership growth over the past decade, with strong momentum continuing in 2024. In Supreme’s home state of Texas, nearly 40% of Texans are Hispanic or Latino.
Rivka brought her limp and obviously dead pet duck into Dr. Bernstein, the veterinarian's office.
As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, “I’m so sorry lady, your duck has passed away.”
Rivka, the distressed owner wailed, “Are you sure, are you really sure?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure. The duck is dead,” the vet replied.
“How can you be so sure?” Rivka protested. “I mean, you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever.
As Rivka looked on in amazement, the lab stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table, and sniffed the dead duck from top to bottom. The lab then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the lab and took it out and returned a few moments later with a cat.
The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird.
The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, and strolled out of the room.
The vet looked at Rivka and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.”
Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys, and produced a bill which he handed to Rivka.
Rivka, still in shock, took the bill. “$150!”, she cried. “$150 just to tell me my duck is dead?”
The vet shrugged. “I’m sorry.” “If you’d taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it’s now $150.”
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