9.14.26 Consumer Strength; mLoop’s Ellen Duncan on LO Movement; Fed Week

Robbie Chrisman: Welcome to the Chrisman Commentary, Daily Mortgage News Podcast. I'm your host, Robbie Chrisman. Topics on today's episode include just what's going on with consumers out there, why Fed conjecture will reach a peak this week. And my interview with MLoop, Ellen Duncan, on how data and AI can modernize LO lender matching and what lenders must do to attract top producers. Here, take a listen to a little preview. Let's talk about the arc of MLO. Its intent when it was started and what it's evolved into. Ellen Duncan: Yep. So um had this sort of aha moment in the spring of 2025 of saying, what if there was a transfer portal for originators? And did a series of research over the course of 2025, interviewed with a third-party researcher, about 100 loan officers, branch managers, originators, and 10 lenders. And there was just receptivity to this idea. And so in Q1 of this year, decided to pursue it. We launched in March with a very early beta with six lenders. At that time, it was only a few, mostly IMBs and two depositories. I was thankful for those lenders that sort of saw a couple of PowerPoint slides and believed in the idea, got some green shoots, got some loan officers to join, and then added some more lenders in June, and then really, I would say, fully launched the product as it is today at August 1st of this year. So we really have about a month under our belts and the sort of fully operational, everything automated, and has been a really great way to see the industry respond positively on both sides of the market. So, you know, early on was no there's gonna be hesitation from lender sides or even sort of on a loan officer side of saying, is it really private? But great receptivity and adoption on both sides of the plate. Robbie Chrisman: People have certainly seen it in Chrisman, among other places. What the latest and and greatest? What's what's been going on here since launch? Ellen Duncan: Yeah, boots on the ground has, I mean, this industry really, you know, I continue to learn is a lot of relationships. So went to some events and then continuing to go to some more conferences over the course of the fall. They're doing a lot of social media. So a lot of owned organic social media on LinkedIn and Instagram, as well as um paid ads across Instagram and Facebook. And so we're really, I guess I'd sort of seeing that multi-touch a couple of times on the loan officer side, get in front of them a few times, and then hoping to keep leaning into that word of mouth that they, you know, hearing of people join and then continuing that side. On the lender side, we're limiting the lenders we let on. So right now, as of this is, you know, end of September, we have 15 lenders live. We are going to add an additional up to 20, depending on sort of who they are and keeping the right set of lenders that sort of match the market in terms of size, channel, et cetera, over the course of September. Robbie Chrisman: This week's podcasts are sponsored by First Close. First close helps lenders accelerate home equity originations with faster property decisioning, streamlined workflows, and a digital borrower experience from application to closing. First close is the only end-to-end digital HELOC and home equity loan solution built specifically for home equity lending. Learn more at firstclose.com. IMN's HELOCs and Second Liens event is here in Austin, Texas, and the markets know that it's a hot topic. Do the markets care about a $40 trillion U.S. deficit? Yes, they do. Does any politician seem to be able to curb spending or be elected to do it? Not really. And in fact, over the weekend, House Speaker Johnson seems to have shifted other national priorities aside in favor of President Trump's proposal to pay every adult $5,000 if the GOP proves victorious in November at a cost of one trillion dollars. Someone wrote a note saying, I've heard from politicians that the U.S. consumer is in great shape. Given my borrowers come from this pool, have you seen any credit card stats lately? Yes. The Federal Reserve calculates that revolving debt is at an all-time high, which can have a positive impact on lenders offering certain products. There are trillions of dollars of equity, but also trillions of dollars of debt. There are many consumers struggling right now for different reasons, but most of them are not the target to become a home buyer. The U.S. consumer has repeatedly shown resilience, especially those employed and continuing to purchase houses. In fact, first-time home buyers share inched up last report. American homeowners hold more equity than at any point on record, and they're borrowing against it in growing numbers. Total owners' equity in residential real estate reached $34.9 trillion in the first quarter of 2026. Mortgage borrowers hold $17.9 trillion of that, roughly $11 trillion of a tappable, an average of about $310,500 per borrower. Subordinate lien originations grew 21% in one year from $148.3 billion in 2024 to $179.3 billion in 2025. Demand is not the question. The question is who meets it and how. In 2022, banks and credit unions together originated 85% of subordinate lien loans. By 2025, that combined share had fallen to 66%, while the non-bank share nearly quadrupled from 8% to 29%. The growth is not evenly distributed either. Between 2023 and 2025, HELOC originations grew roughly 140% at non-banks against 20% at regional banks, 8% at credit unions, and 7% at large banks. This is competition from the capital markets, not a cyclical dip. And each year an institution weights, the operating gap they must close gets wider. Last week was lousy as rates sold off in every session, with the pressure accelerating into Friday as three forces converged. Renewed oil-driven inflation that's rising faster than predicted, which core services has posted its strongest increase since January, fiscal concerns, with the budget deficit reaching $1.97 trillion through the first 11 months of the fiscal year, after the failed Treasury buyback and aggressive rhetoric from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and a market increasingly pricing a Fed hike not only this week as fait accompli, but a second increase before the end of the year. The ten-year treasury yield climbed 20 basis points over the course of last week to 4.98%, while two years rose roughly 27 basis points to 4.64%, producing an eight basis point bare flattening to a 34 basis point spread. Elevated borrowing costs could eventually weigh on economic growth and equity valuations, challenging Treasury's traditional safe haven appeal. MBS absorbed the rate shock through a classic negative feedback loop. That's five consecutive sessions of lower prices and wider spreads, which triggered heavier extension hedging and snowball selling. Current coupons lost roughly a point. Lower fours fell as much as one and a quarter points, and the 30-year current coupon backed up 20 basis points to 6%, with the 5-10-year blend spread finally widening three basis points to plus 114 after weeks of compression. Volume surged roughly $110 billion a day, a sign of conviction behind the move rather than passive drift. Thursday's class A session showed meaningful coupon dispersion, with sixes and six and a half relatively resilient, while sevens cheapened materially. Specified pool payups generally deteriorated, particularly low-balanced conventional cohorts. Although isolated gains and 95 LTV and Fannie 20-year look more technical than fundamental. There's only so much margin in a mortgage trade, so when revenue gets squeezed, execution matters even more. It's imperative for capital market staff to know at the loan level where they expect to make money, where they give it back, and what risk is still sitting in the pipeline across pricing, hedging, pooling, and delivery. I'm hearing from many folks that they don't need another technology dashboard that tells them what happened, but rather need to know why it happened and what they can do about it before the trade is over. As more production moves into specified pools, that visibility will become even more important. For today's interview, I wanted to welcome to the show MLOop's Ellen Duncan to talk about how data and AI can modernize LO lender matching and what lenders must do to attract top producers. She's founder of MLoop, the mortgage industry's transfer portal. Some are calling it the hottest new transfer portal for loan officers. And she also has great insight into the data and trends that are shaping recruiting and origination movement. There are various companies in the mortgage industry that come onto the scene with a bang and it's like, hey, did you hear about that? Yes, did you hear about this? Did you hear about this? MLoop is certainly one of those. Congratulations to you. You built MLoop to anonymously match LO's with lenders. Very fun in a way, especially for millennials here. What convinced you that the traditional model was broken? Or I guess what'd you what were you setting out to solve? Where did this come from? And yes, please get into your background. I know there's some cool, you know, Fortune 500 type companies that led you to. Ellen Duncan: Awesome. Yeah. So marketer by background, by love of a career in general. So when you say come out with a bang, definitely have that brand and awareness-driving muscle that I'm able to use in the loop. But the origin story sort of has two key parts. I have been a fractional marketing or chief marketing officer across a lot of different verticals as an independent consultant. And I was advising and acting in a consulting capacity as a fractional chief marketing officer for an I and B. And so I observed what I would call B2B growth, but really recruiting in the mortgage industry, and continued to hear from both the lender and the originator side how painful it is. But you see how painful it is in parallel to the data point that year over year, 20% of originators still move. And so you wonder there's this clear need to move or desire to move, and you know, whether we can talk about the reasons and the carrot stick, all those types of things. So I had that observation. And parallel to that, I'm a college sports fan from a big College Sports family, and I see the waves that the NCAA transfer portal continues to make in college sports. And so I just had this thought a little over a year ago now where I said, what if there was a transfer portal for originators? And just sort of flew that idea out there to a couple of my then very few friends in the industry. Now I've made some more and kept getting receptivity to it. So that was really the community. A lot is being spent in recruiting and that there's this sort of relatable um solution that happened within college sports that could be transferable to this vertical. Robbie Chrisman: It's an interesting analogy because when I think college sports in NIL, it's very much the wild west. I believe I read an article in the New York Times the other week about agents that don't need to be licensed, and they're getting in front of players, and they're basically college coaches will tell be told like there's 10 different people representing a player, and there's it's such it is such the wild, but all that to say it's such the wild west. But getting in front of it is going to benefit these people in the long run. Obviously, it's like the first of its kind thing here in mortgage banking, and you're you're well ahead of the wave. And so it'll it'll be neat to see this continue to evolve. Or you you brought up carrot and stick. And I'd love for you to elaborate that kind of in the vein of what is driving movement or what does the modern originator want? What can companies provide that that's appealing to originators? Ellen Duncan: Yeah. So what I mean by carrot and stick is really proactive, reactive. A lot of the sort of use cases and stories from I do a lot of sort of user interviews or just try to meet originators that have moved or just real wherever they are on their career journey to hear from them. And you hear these anecdotal for sure, but stories that are, oh, you know, a really bad day with ops, or my divisional decided to move, or something that was sort of a catalyst that they needed to react to, to then either take a recruiter's call or decide to sort of lift their head up and look to see what else is around. In addition to that, Robbie, I think what's also really interesting in right now where we are in, you know, ending Q3 of 2026 is the amount of consolidation happening. There's big news recently, um, et cetera, but people are being very reactive to that. And so the sort of carrot part of it is where I try to position when I talk about to both lenders and to originators, is that it gives you this opportunity for originators to be proactive, to understand what's their worth, what are their options, where could they be find another fit so that when they get the call that their company's been acquired or merged, or they get the call that their divisional left, or yeah, they have a really bad experience with underwriting, they feel empowered to have a place that they've already established sort of a network and a place to live versus feeling like on their back feet to not know where to take their career next. Robbie Chrisman: You've had a ton of discussions with originators on the subject. Anything surprising about what they're looking for that maybe wouldn't come to mind originally? Ellen Duncan: Yeah, every day it's sort of different. I will say um this is just an interesting one that lenders don't want to believe even when I show the data. They don't really care about like the incentive trips, the president's clubs, the sort of internal. They a lot of we actually have a question around because some of the lenders are offering it, cash incentives or the get the equivalent of what a president's trip or club trip would cost. A lot less of that sort of looking for that that sort of thing. Robbie Chrisman: The last thing I want to do if I go on vacation is hang out with my coworkers. Ellen Duncan: Yeah, with your spouses and all that. So that's I mean, that's continuing to come through. And I think it could be a generation, you know, generational shifts, just a lot of different culture. I mean, you attribute a lot to that. Those parts of it. The other side is really leaning into, and I think there's a lot of this sort of thematically within the industry, as I've continued to learn of owning your business. So whether you have that their your own tech stack, your database, your brand, so DBA, team names, all those things so that they feel like they're being supported by their lender, but to sort of have their ecosystem of business that they could sort of bring and transfer somewhere else and not being blocked out from that. So just sort of learning how people are handling and sort of asking questions around who owns the data in the CRM, who can I have a team name or DBA, all those types of things as well. Robbie Chrisman: We will keep the sports analogies going. And there's two that come to mind. The NFL recently just canceled the Pro Bowl game. And that was a thing for forever. And now it's just, well, I want the recognition I'm a Pro Bowler without having to do some potentially get hurt or something like that. And so that reminds me of the president's club. And then in the European soccer landscape, a lot of transfer deals get hung up on image rights. Because sometimes the players will release image rights to the club, or sometimes they'll keep them for themselves. And those are big sticking points in the negotiations. And so it's it's cool to see those come into the more. You know, it's actually really good. Ellen Duncan: And then we can go off this boards, but I actually saw an article yesterday, maybe I think it was in the Launchy Journal, that uh the NFL has this whole helmets off strategy now in terms of trying to show a lot more of the younger players' faces, even a little bit about their dating lives and things like that, but really leaning into the sort of player recognition. Robbie Chrisman: Yeah. Let me dive into the data a little bit more with you. What is the data revealed that resumes, referrals, and networks seem to miss? Ellen Duncan: So a few, I'll say myth busters. Again, early days. I'm sure you know, we can do a little bit more of an intro of what and like when we started, but so early days. But we I was, I'll say, told a few times when I decided to pursue this in Q1 this year that you're never gonna get large producers. Large producers know who to call. They're getting called all the time. Daily of producers that join, we're averaging in for sure the 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 million. We do have originals that are under 10 million as well, but we are seeing, I think I just saw a profile join a couple hours, but 36 million annual volume. And again, they're open to looking. And so what I would say the data is telling us is a little bit of it's not how everyone thinks it's been with recruiters. I think where recruiting is in this industry is I have met some talented recruiters. I think there is a role to have a human touch as someone really does explore making a transition to have someone to sort of play options off of. But there's so much that can be done differently and more efficiently through a platform with the benefit of technology and all the data we have available now through obviously the NMLS and all that. So long way around up saying the data is telling us that people are open to looking, not necessarily urgently, and they are open to looking not as urgently. Robbie Chrisman: So moving from sports analogies into the inevitable dating analogies here, because it is kind of like a dating type app for professionals. It used to be that maybe you download Tinder or Bumble or Hinge or Match.com for my boomer listeners out there. And you just they're just people and they just show you people, and it's gotten to the point of saying they probably analyze photos on there. Oh, Robbie seems to have a mullet, and so well, we're gonna match him with girls with NASCAR backgrounds or something like that. I don't know, a good, a good you know, match sort of thing. And I would say that the AI in figuring out the proper matches is evolved, probably even beyond what we realize it's capable of for you. Thoughts on on technology and the the way it helps aid in this process where you're implementing it, but then also kind of I mean, the human judgment or the human angle still matters. I mean, we there needs to be interpersonal connection, it needs to be cultural fit, and a lot of those things technology can't necessarily pick up on. Ellen Duncan: Totally. Um, so AI is tremendous support, and you know, oftentimes people see the arc or hear the story, like, how did you get this out of the door so quickly? And a lot of that also has the advent of AI and how I can lean into that as a founder and with my development team, et cetera. To your point there, I'll give a sort of very tactical answer and then I can build on it. But is so when we have a match card, so Ravi, you're a loan officer, you've got match with lender A620. Um, they're a depository based in Texas, it gives you a bunch of stuff. There are four parts of that match card. Only two of them are AI or based on our LLM. And so what that the LLM does is take everything from Romney's profile and everything from that Texas banks profile and tells us why it works. So it tells you, you know, they don't have overlays and they have the CRM you want and they have uh growth-minded culture and whatever and what doesn't work. So they don't have 401k match and they're not licensed in every state that you want to be licensed in, but you could ask them if they're willing to grow and sort of gives you those things. Then we have fixed period parts of the match card, which are the human elements. So I write an MLoop take for every lender that's on the platform because I have conversations, you know, not necessarily like this, but a live conversation with the lenders. And I'm able to sort of give a little bit of my take on their human perspective. They're also able to input their pitch, human perspective. And so you get that balance on there. In addition to that, what I always love to say is we give the sort of warm introduction, the matchmaker in the dating app. And it's still up to a lender, a leader, the lender, and the human themselves, the originator, to make a decision. You know, is there, you know, mutual trust? Do they actually drive with each other beyond what the dating app said they would drive on and have that in there? So you're still, we're not forcing anyone to make a transition. We're not forcing anyone to hire anyone. We're just giving a data-driven match and sort of starting that process. Robbie Chrisman: Any misconceptions or PR hurdles that you had to get over things that that maybe people are skeptical about? Maybe I think you mentioned privacy before, but but things that that have, you know, people have have shown reluctance towards that you're like, no, this actually is not an issue. We got this covered. Ellen Duncan: I would say, which is less, it was an interesting, I would say from like a fixed mindset perspective, is there have been several lenders that we love it, we want to be part of it, but can you not let our loan officers on it? And so an interesting from you think from like recruiting and retention. I have some also more growth-minded lenders that are talking about it externally. They some people actually put it on their recruiting page because they believe that you know, even if their people ended up if someone's gonna take a recruiter's call, they're gonna take a recruiter call. If they're gonna look, they're gonna look. So why not talk about a more data-driven, efficient way to do it? So I'd say that's a a hurdle at times with there. But other than that, not that it's really surface. I have anticipated originators being more skeptical of the anonymity, but it really hasn't proven to be an issue. Robbie Chrisman: Well, let's get to here. Let's end with kind of a juicy tidbit here, if that wasn't juicy enough. I have a juicier one too. Oh, go go ahead, please. Ellen Duncan: So the other part is uh when I you know said if we see this newer to the industry to the vertical, someone told me early on in the winter, you know, the start of 2025, 2026, that there's nothing truly neutral in this industry. And so if you could keep as truly neutral, you're gonna build as like sort of a North Star, one of your tenant, you know, mission visions of the company, that really would be a differentiator. I sort of took that. It's like, okay, got it. You know, sort of I was like, that's a dramatic statement to make. Fast forward this summer, I met a lender who offered me in the six figures. So right now we're a very palatable entry fee for lenders because we're in beta, offered me in the six figures if I would match them with everybody. And I was like, oh, interesting. There is that sort of quick part of being neutral in that. And so you could see where people, you know, stay. Robbie Chrisman: So that was my well, there's there's good good synergies between MLoop and Chrisman because we pride ourselves on being a neutral party in the industry. We're just here to report the news. And we've had companies say to us, hey, if we give you X dollars, can we be the official product pricing engine of Chrisman and the only one that gets to advertise in your newsletter? And we go, no, that's not how it works. So some potty co here. Uh before we go, thoughts on what lenders should change or what lenders should be doing to become the ones top talent seeks out, top originators. Where are they going? What are they looking for? Ellen Duncan: Definitely. They are looking for true the leaders themselves. Um, there's so much that we call it word salad. Even I compare the lenders' overviews on MLOs’ sea of sameness. Like, I, you know, why would you go to this my mid-size IMB versus that mid-size mid-size IMB? And it again, I'm a marketer's marketer, but it is coming back to who are the leaders. You can get the same tech, tech's becoming cheaper, people can, you know, get the same tech, same products, products are more of a commodity. But if you have true growth opportunities and leaders that you're gonna learn from, you're seeing that as sort of this cultural differentiator in the matches. Robbie Chrisman: Well, at the risk of being cliche, I'm so glad we matched. I'm so glad that we were able to do this interview, do some work together. I I know the response in the commentary for the MLOop stuff has been phenomenal. So here's two much more success. Thank you very much for the time. Ellen Duncan: Thanks, Robbie. Robbie Chrisman: Heading into this week, the market has shifted from debating whether inflation will fade to pricing a materially higher near-term policy rate. The market is clearly prepared for a hike at Wednesday's federal open market decision, but we'll likely care more about what the new dots imply for the path beyond September. The escalation in the Middle East and oil above $100 a barrel have complicated the Fed's decision by introducing a fresh energy-driven inflation risk and the potential for broader pass-through into prices. Expectations this week are for the FOMC to raise rates by 25 basis points, bringing the federal funds rate target range to 3.75% to 4%. Other highlights this week include retail sales, import-export prices, September's NAHB housing market index, housing starts and building permits, pending home sales, and leading indicators. With nothing of note on today's economic calendar, we begin the week with agency MBS prices slightly better than Friday's close, the two-year yielding 4.62, and the 10-year yielding 4.96 after closing last week at 4.98%, up 20 basis points over the course of last week. Let's wrap up with a joke and some housekeeping. What do you get when you cross an armadillo with a dildo? Hired from the sex toy company. Thanks again to First Close for sponsoring this week's podcast. First Close provides fintech solutions to HELOC and mortgage lenders nationwide, and their home equity lending platform accelerates the home equity lending process, reducing application to closing times from 45 days to less than 10.