9.24.26 Servicing Primer; KBW’s Bose George on Market Dynamics; Sell Off Sell Off

SPEAKER_01 0:01 Welcome to the Christman Commentary, Daily Mortgage News Podcast. I'm your host, Robbie Christman. Topics on today's episode include a big primer on servicing values and how they're impacting borrowers, takeaways from a massive sell-off in bond markets yesterday, and my interview with KBW's Bose George on his market research and view for the industry moving forward. Here, take a listen to a low preview. When we look at the mortgage industry, consolidation has obviously been a trend over the last couple of years. Servicing has been a big deal in terms of are you retaining, are you selling, who's buying, what are they doing with it? How are they recapturing? What have you been paying attention to when it comes to trends that you're seeing in the mortgage industry? SPEAKER_00 0:45 I mean, the consolidation trends are truly that that is something we are very focused on. It's been most visible on the servicing side, where the largest um obviously was a Rocket Cooper transaction. But there's also just been a lot of buying by larger servicers over the years. And you know, Rocket is whatever more than 20% of GSC servicing outstanding now. And there's significant benefits of scale on the servicing side. So we see that continuing. I mean, the on the origination side, I mean, the industry from our perspective still remains very fragmented. I mean, if you look at the retail market share, Rocket is whatever, 5-ish percent, and then cross-country is sub-three. And for such a large industry, it remains surprisingly fragmented. Over time, we would expect that to change. And so from that standpoint, you know, we are looking at technology, what that does, as we're focused very closely on what AI could do, um, not just on the efficiency side, but what it could do in terms of you know customer acquisition. Is it is it is it is that going to be the way that the larger players can sort of pull away and and get more scale? Because it's it because at the moment the industry remains you know very fragmented, and but and you know, the relationships that like the loan officers, etc., have are really driving the business. And so I think it's going to be interesting to see if that changes or how that changes over time. SPEAKER_01 2:12 Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, SpringEQ, the home equity expert. See why SpringEQ is the clear choice in home equity, helping over 150,000 homeowners access almost fifteen billion dollars in equity by visiting mortgage.springeq.com slash equity. When in doubt, hold a conference. It's an aging group of attendees, and exhibitors' displays and giveaways tell the tale. Frisbees have been replaced with reading glasses, golf balls by nail files, and hangover remedy pouches. MBA cut its 2027 forecast to $2.1 trillion. $634 billion is what the Mortgage Bankers Association now expects Americans to refinance in all of 2027. What's new out there? Well, my dad was at the Acuma event this week, and his takeaways were that home equity is a big growth area. Some companies out there are providing a credit enhancement for home equity loans and HELOCs, creating more loan opportunities and measurable growth for your home equity portfolio by expanding your CLTB and guideline parameters. I was in Schenectady at the New York MBA, and the conversation in the hallways included Ginny Mae's focus on liquidity, continuing to have young people enter the business, bottlenecks for Fannie Mae, like affordability pressures due to the lock and effect laws and regulations, zoning and permitting, land and lumbered labor, anyways. The MBA seeing origination activity continuing to be constrained, and companies finding ways to provide more borrower eligibility in a responsible manner. Servicing and its fair value is always a topic. For almost four years, bank mortgage servicing rights, or MSR, fair values have exceeded the 1.5% of unpaid principal balance threshold. I mentioned that yesterday, but I wanted to add today that the mortgage industry's focus on capturing traditional refinances is increasingly becoming a strategic misallocation of capital because it ignores shifting demographic trends. Namely, declining household formation and the aging of the baby boomer cohort, which will provide massive housing wealth transfers via non-taxable inheritance rather than traditional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage originations. These structural shifts change the servicing assets dynamics because inherited borrowers present entirely different risk profiles and product needs compared to first-time home buyers. Servicing infrastructure is already moving from being commoditized at high scale toward hyper-flexible and capable of managing complex high-touch assets like rehabilitation loans with structural draw management and bespoke ELOCs. With rising consumer liquidity strain, i.e., over 40% of borrowers lacking a $1,000 liquidity cushion and nearly a third demanding payment forbearance options, servicers will be forced to balance low cost straight through processing or STP automation for routine payment cycles with specialized human-centric loss mitigation frameworks to manage rising operational risk, minimize non-performing loan delinquencies, and optimize per loan servicing economics. Servicing is only a portion of the prices that borrowers see. The bond market is still the primary driver. Lenders had one or more rate changes yesterday as the bond market suffered a severe broad-based sell-off with sharp losses and a spike in yields across the curve. Why? The preliminary September SP Global U.S. Manufacturing and Services PMIs showed a sharp acceleration to a multi-year high in business activity, stoking concerns that the Fed will move to institute more policy tightening. In fact, Fed Governor Barr hawkishly said that his baseline is further policy adjustments will likely be needed. There was also an exceptionally weak $70 billion five-year Treasury note auction, which cleared above 5.03%, generating a wide 3.1 basis point tail and revealing foreign demand from indirect buyers plummeted to 54%. We also saw crude oil futures traded higher due to no geopolitical progress in the Middle East. And let's not forget the mounting budget deficit. The result was that yields spiked significantly across the curve to the highest level seen in two decades for most maturities. The five-year Treasury climbed 17 basis points to more than 5%. 10-year yields jumped 14 basis points to around 5.8%, on pace for its seventh consecutive monthly increase, while the 30-year yield approached 5.4%, which threatens to ripple through mortgages and global corporate borrowing costs. While the short end of the curve reacted logically to a Fed stuck in cash-up mode, fast money traders amplified the long end's dramatic move. This rapid repricing heavily hurt the mortgage market, forcing the FANI conventional coupon up 19 basis points to 6.22%, as spreads widened materially on light volume, and it also pushed the par note rate up 15 basis points to a restrictive 7.8%. The probability of a 25 basis point rate hike at the October FOMC meeting has increased to nearly 70%, up from 55% at the beginning of the week. For today's interview, I wanted to welcome to the show KBW's Bose George to talk about his market research and view for the industry moving forward. He's managing director at Keith Bruyette and Woods, a stifle company, joining in 2005, where he covers the mortgage finance sector, including the mortgage banks, mortgage insurers, mortgage REITs, title insurers, and the GSEs. Let me start by talking about KBW and your role. You're the managing director at KBW. You've been there for more than 20 years. You cover the mortgage finance sector. You were at UBS before that. What does KBW do? And in your role, what do you enjoy so much about it? SPEAKER_00 7:52 Thanks again for having me on the show. Um so KBW is a financial services boutique investment bank. So we are focused on the financial verticals banks, primarily insurance, fintech, and uh I cover the mortgage area. And we have you know people doing the other consumer things like credit card, et cetera. So I work within equity research, um, you know, coordinating our whole research effort in the mortgage sector. I think KBW is it's a great place for someone in research. We do um, you know, there's a lot of autonomy in terms of thinking of interesting things to write about. And as you know, mortgage has a a lot of interesting areas. So been a very enjoyable place to uh to do research on the mortgage sector. SPEAKER_01 8:36 What are you seeing out there? And I I say that a little confused because by some reports, activity is down versus last year, by other reports, activity is up versus last year. Maybe that's looking at mortgage-backed security issuance versus uh actual originations. Or from your perspective, what are you seeing in the numbers and how would you categorize the current mortgage market? SPEAKER_00 9:00 I mean, I think the current mortgage market is I think it's safe to say it's relatively weak. I mean, the first half of the year was up modestly, looks like year over year, given what's happened with rates now. Um, I think it's probably safe to say that the back half of the year will probably be down year over year. So I feel like it's probably going to be a flattish year. I think the more disappointing thing is probably that the market expectation for 27, 28 was, you know, for a for a recovery. Um, and now rates have done the last couple of weeks, and especially this week, unless uh something changes there, you know, it looks like things will keep getting deferred and and this recovery. But I feel like every year we're waiting for the recovery, it just keeps getting pushed out another year. SPEAKER_01 9:47 How do you see the landscape shifting? And that can either be well, Fanny and Freddie will continue to recede and the non-agency space will continue to proliferate. Obviously, UWM has been in the news a lot. Who knows what that portends for their outlook? Rocket, it kind of seems like they're staying in strong. How do you do how do you see the shifting landscape of the industry? SPEAKER_00 10:09 I mean, I think the theme in non-QM growing is it seems like uh that's the secular shift. It seems like there's a demand-driven piece to that, obviously, with customers who are not traditional W-2 borrowers, and you know, there's a obviously a large and growing cohort of those customers, and then the whole investment property DSCR side, where the GSCs have become less competitive. So the demand is strong. But this at the same time, the capital coming into this space has been meaningful as well. Um, you know, a number of different providers, but the insurance companies are you know a big part of that. So I think that that that you know sort of combination of events suggests that the non-QM market will continue to grow. We don't see the GSC shrinking, but within those couple of pockets, it seems like they will be probably be a little less active than than they were historically. SPEAKER_01 10:59 What are you keeping your eye on in terms of data? There's obviously a ton of different data points out there, and and we try and create a cohesive narrative. But in the second half of 2026, are you saying, well, I'm I'm really looking at what CPI or PC is doing? I'm looking at retail sales to see if the American consumer's dropping off. I'm looking at existing and new home sales, housing starts building. Like, what do you what do you like to pay attention to? SPEAKER_00 11:24 I mean, we do look at the inflation data that you know that that clearly, I mean, in the end, I feel like what's what's going to drive this is interest rates. And those are kind of the key sort of early indicators of what's going to happen with rates. I mean, we're not we're assuming mortgage spreads remain reasonably stable. I mean, one of the I'd say positive defense is the role of Fannie and Freddie buying more MBS. And while it hasn't been less sort of aggressive buying, I think what it's been is done is policing spread. So spreads don't really widen out and they sort of step in if that happens. So that's helped keep spread stable. But that means you know the real driver is now going to be what happens with rates. So yes, from that standpoint, we do track some of those metrics that you noted: PIPCE, the employment data. And then for the industry in particular, you know, we are we're tracking, you know, the MBA puts out their weekly data on applications. There's you know, monthly data from the GSEs and FHA on production. You know, I mean, those are obviously a little bit after the fact because rates going up drives the volume that hits these numbers, you know, whatever, 30 days or 40 days, 45 days out. So, you know, it is the interest rate, you know, metrics are probably more key. So, yeah, I mean, I feel like this is a job now that's become far more macro where you know we are very focused on things that could change it, Fed policy, what the best end that is trying to do at Treasury with rates. And yeah, so I feel like it a lot of those macro drivers are probably where we would pay more attention. At the same time, we are you know on the credit side, we do focus on a lot of the credit metrics. I mean, fortunately, those so far remained relatively stable and home prices remained you know relatively stable. So I feel like from a credit standpoint, the housing market looks pretty solid. So I feel like that's a you know, that's a positive. SPEAKER_01 13:12 Do you have thoughts on shifting channel compositions? Obviously, the broker channel has come back into prominence here over the last couple of years. Do you see that continuing to do so? I believe it's around 30% of originations currently. How do you see that? Do you see retail evolving into the future, the mortgage of the future, digital mortgage? Obviously, there's a lot to unpack from what I just asked. SPEAKER_00 13:34 To be honest, it's a kind of a tough question because the the growth in the brokerage channel has obviously been driven very much by UWM, given the capital need that you know caused it that resulted in that transaction recently with Oak Tree. I feel like the market at least is curious whether the growth there might slow a little bit. I think it remains early to tell, but you know, I think that is a possibility that at least, you know, that the that even if they don't shrink, maybe the growth slows a little bit. So that's going to be the really the driver of what happens in you know in that channel. Um I mean, on the retail side, I mean, over time, we would think the direct to consumer part of retail sees growth, but you know, I feel like it's still early. I mean, because I feel like Rocket don't know that on the on refines, they can really crush it on direct-to-consumer. Um, on purchase, the mark the market still, I think it's safe to say, belongs to loan offer. So we have to see how that transition goes and if direct to consumer can make more inroads over time with the help of technology. And that I think it's a little early to tell how that happens. Or I think it's the time frame. I feel like it will happen to some degree over time, but it's I feel like it's not clear if that's you know a near-term thing or that's really a little further out. SPEAKER_01 14:50 Uh, thoughts on the rate environment in general? The chatter is obviously higher for longer. Warsh has reduced a lot of the forward guidance from the Fed. And the question is not at what point rates are going to come down. Maybe the better question is almost at what point are potential home buyers going to come to terms with this is the environment, and I might as well get off the sidelines if I still have aspirations of homeownership. SPEAKER_00 15:15 That's a good point. I feel like that, you know, eventually that happens. I think part of the problem now is that rates keep going up. So that, you know, so I think as people get used to a four and a half, 10-year and it's whatever, six low sixes, you know, third-year fixed, the number has gone up again. And it'll be higher next week, just given the move we've had in rates. So I feel like part of the problem is just that it keeps moving. I think if it's stabilized and if the you know, if the 30-year fixed was, you know, say range between 625 and 650, it's not a great level, but the market would eventually adjust. You know, each year we're doing 2 trillion, that's resetting at the new rate. This whatever 14 trillion of mortgages are outstanding. So, you know, larger cohorts are ready to transact at market rates. So that that's happening. It's just that I feel like it, you know, just given the move up in rates that keeps that's been happening this year, that's really what pushes it out. I mean, I was quite, you know, I'd say optimistic in February when the 10-year was roughly at four, mortgage rates were at six, and I felt that that was stable. You know, we would be laying the groundwork for, if not, you know, a decent year this year, but then you know, based on the kind of what you noted, people would get used to that, and that's at a level where people could transact and we could see volume pick up. But I feel like now, if this persists, people have to get used to us, you know, whatever, 675 to 7% 30 year fricks trade. And, you know, I think that'll take again a little more time to get used to. But if that's the number, you know, I feel like eventually, you know, we'll be we'll get there. And it it just pushes it out again, you know, but maybe a year or two, just because it's you know, rates are so much higher than expected or and uh than they were a year earlier. SPEAKER_01 16:58 And finally, before I let you go, upcoming research from you, things that you're excited to talk about or publish, any teasers you can provide? SPEAKER_00 17:08 We're definitely focused on the whole vantage score FICO issue. I'm just curious to see how that you know continues to play out. I mean, today uh Bill Poulty again posted on X about the GST's internal scores and you know, wanting that to be out there as well. Just, you know, again, you're curious how that impacts things, but that's definitely um, you know, kind of a uh a big topic. Um, you know, we've been writing extensively on GST reform, GSC privatization. You know, last year that looked like that was um, you know, there was momentum, but this year it looks like that slowed, and I think partly because the administration obviously has you know bigger priorities uh with the war. But you know, after the midterms, it's possible that this get that gets a little attention again. And so we're you know, we're definitely focused on that because if it doesn't get done in this administration, then it probably never gets done. So um, you know, that's that's another uh topic we're focused on. Otherwise, we'd say, you know, the mortgage uh changes in the mortgage space related to some of the topics we discussed earlier: consolidation, growth, um, artificial intelligence. SPEAKER_01 18:13 Very good. Well, I look forward to that. I appreciate you making the time for me, and hopefully we'll get to speak again soon. SPEAKER_00 18:18 Great. Thanks very much. Have a good day. Talk to you later. SPEAKER_01 18:23 I'm on a flight from Albany, New York to Missoula, Montana today. So uh today's economic calendar will kick off later this morning with initial jobless claims, continuing claims, and the current Q2 account balance. It'll be followed by August New Home Sales, a $44 billion, seven-year treasury note auction, a buyback operation of up to six billion dollars, and 20-year to 30-year bonds, some Fed speak, and a meeting between President Trump and President G. We begin the day with agency MBS prices slightly worse than yesterday's close, the two-year yielding 4.90, and the 10-year yielding 5.125 after closing yesterday at 5.11%. Let's wrap up with a joke and some housekeeping. It's autumn, and a doctor in the country wanted to take off work and go hunting. So he hollered at his janitor, I'm going hunting tomorrow, buddy, and I don't want to close the clinic. I want you to take care of the clinic. I want all keep my patients taken care of. I'll give you 50 bucks. Yes, sir, answered Buddy. So the doctor goes hunting and returns the following day and asks, So, buddy, how was your day? Buddy told him that he took care of three patients. The first one had a headache, so I gave him Tylenol. Bravo, buddy. The second one? The second one had a bad stomach, and I gave him malloc, sir. Bravo, bravo. You're good at this. And what about the third one? Well, sir, I was sitting there having a smoke, and suddenly the door flew open and a woman entered. Like a flash, she undressed herself, taking off everything, including her bra and her panties, and lies down on the table and shouts, Help me! I haven't seen a man in over two years. Lord Cundrin Jesus, buddy! What'd you do? Buddy replied. I put drops in her eyes. Thanks again to Spring EQ for sponsoring this week's podcast. Spring EQ is the clear choice in home equity, helping over a hundred and fifty thousand homeowners access almost fifteen billion dollars in equity. To learn more, visit mortgage.com slash equity.