The U.S. bond markets are closed today, so beware of posted rates. Ever wonder why little moves in interest rates move mortgage rates significantly? Capital Markets Wrap is today at noon PT. Presented by Polly, the Panel, among other things, will cover that as well as how certain products move in certain ways. Along those lines, a Movoto by Lower study found that less than 8 percent of homes listed across 196 U.S. metros are affordable to median-income veterans using zero-down VA loans, highlighting significant regional disparities, with Macon-Bibb County, GA, ranking highest in affordability while Jacksonville, NC, leads in VA loan share and Virginia Beach–Norfolk leads in total VA loan originations. Watch out for those vets: the introduction of Automated Decision Support at the Department of Veterans Affairs in December 2021 has coincided with a surge in errors at the agency. In 2021, the VA counted 66,000 errors in collecting evidence for veterans’ claims, a number which climbed in each successive year and reached 329,000 in fiscal year 2026. Before the launch of Automated Decision Support, reviewers sent back 23 percent of claims to collect more evidence and reconsider, a figure that in 2026 has hit 35 percent. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Truework, a Checkr company, the one verification solution to replace in-house waterfalls. Verify any borrower with a VOIEA solution that automates the entire process to quickly deliver the most accurate and complete reports with broad GSE coverage. Today’s has an interview with Splitero’s Stephanie Goss on expanding access to home equity through creative products, and how growing institutional demand for rated HEI securitizations is lowering funding costs, allowing for more competitive borrower pricing.)
Employment; Partnerships sought
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Two Top Midwest Mortgage Teams Join Movement! Two of Southeast Michigan’s leading mortgage teams are joining Movement Mortgage, bringing decades of experience, proven production, and deep local relationships to the company’s growing Midwest Region. Jeanna Carey, leader of Carey Team Mortgage, was named among Mortgage Women Magazine’s 2024 Top 100 Women in Mortgage in the loan originator volume category. Rick Richter has spent decades serving borrowers across Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, earning recognition that includes a No. 34 national ranking from Scotsman Guide. For experienced mortgage professionals, growth doesn’t always mean starting over. Sometimes it means putting the right company behind what you’ve already built. If you’re producing at a high level, the question isn’t whether you can succeed. It’s whether your company is helping you reach the next level. Ready to see what more your business could do at Movement? Email Brady Yeager to start the conversation.
You Built the Business. Why Are You Still Carrying All the Risk? You started your mortgage company to build something meaningful, lead people, and create opportunity. You probably didn’t start it to spend your days worrying about liquidity, warehouse lines, compliance costs, technology investments, and the next market downturn. What if you could take your chips off the table, continue running your business, and gain the strength of a well-capitalized national mortgage banking platform? An established mortgage banker with nationwide reach, experienced leadership, comprehensive product offerings, and strong operational infrastructure is exploring strategic partnerships with independent mortgage company owners. Preserve what makes your business special. Continue leading your team. Focus on production and growth while an experienced partner provides the capital, infrastructure, and operational support. Keep building what you love. Consider leaving some of the risk behind. Confidential inquiries can be sent to me for forwarding.
National mortgage lender Certainty Home Lending, a Rate Company, has named Tom Sherman as Senior Vice President of Mortgage Lending. Sherman has spent 29 years in the mortgage industry and will work from McKinney, Texas, serving borrowers across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and East Texas.
Lender and brokers products, services, and software
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Thank you to everyone who connected with Western Alliance Bank at MBA’s Annual Convention & Expo 2026 in Chicago! Western Alliance Bank’s Specialized Mortgage Services Group appreciated the opportunity to discuss industry challenges, emerging opportunities and how Western Alliance can help mortgage lenders succeed in today’s changing environment. While at MBA Annual, Mark Short, National Sales Manager, Mortgage Warehouse Lending, and Chris Martin, Director, Treasury Management Sales, sat down with HousingWire to discuss how Western Alliance is helping clients solve their business challenges with flexible financing strategies, including customized mortgage warehouse lending, MSR financing, note financing and treasury management solutions. Short highlighted Western Alliance’s highly engaged decisionmakers: “Our C-suite leadership is heavily involved, so when something happens in the industry, we can move quicker than [just about] any other bank.” Read the full article and watch the interview, or watch on YouTube. Connect with Specialized Mortgage Services at Western Alliance Bank, Member FDIC, to keep the conversation going.
One Engine. Every Loan. One Source of Pricing Truth. Rates above 7 percent. Purchase demand soft. Every vendor on the P&L is under review. AI can help cut costs, but the price you quote shouldn’t be an experiment. Production pricing must be consistent, explainable, and auditable on every loan. LoanPASS PricingEngine is known for non-conventional lending. Did you know it prices conventional too? With direct GSE pricing and the major LOS integrations, one engine prices it all. A snapshot of who trusts it: retail lender running conventional, government, jumbo, HELOC, seconds, physician, and portfolio construction on a single tenant. The nation’s largest wholesale and correspondent non-QM and BPL lenders. Chattel and reverse loan lenders as well. Different products, different pain points, one source of pricing truth. Lenders are coming back for LoanPASS QuickPricer, BulkPricer, AUS, and PMIPricer. AI for intelligence. Rules for pricing. Schedule your private demonstration at LoanPASS.io.
Spring EQ (NMLS #1464945) just delivered one of its largest home equity pricing improvements, giving partners more opportunities to offer competitive solutions and win more business. With significant pricing improvements across most home equity buckets, now is the time to revisit previously priced scenarios and take another look at your pipeline. And there’s more! Spring EQ’s November promotion offers an additional 37.5 bps off rate on all home equity products. Together, these improvements give you more competitive pricing, greater flexibility to meet borrower needs, and more opportunities to turn home equity conversations into closed loans. Visit EMMA to price, process, and manage loans. Not a partner? Join here: Wholesale or Correspondent.
Reduce VOI/E costs by 75 percent+. Maxwell’s VOI/E solution, powered by Argyle, helps lenders reduce verification costs by up to 75 percent on eligible loans, while simplifying a traditionally manual part of the mortgage process. Integrated directly into Maxwell’s Point of Sale, the solution lets borrowers verify income and employment without leaving their application. No document chase or manual follow-up. For loan officers, this means less time tracking down verification and more time moving loans forward. For borrowers, it means a faster, more connected application experience. Learn more about Maxwell’s VOI/E.
“Where is your next purchase loan coming from? The lenders gaining ground are helping agents find buyers. BoomTown, part of Inside Real Estate, helps lenders do that. Managed Google campaigns reach active buyers, a co-branded home search site with AI-assisted search gives them somewhere to land, and automated follow-up keeps them engaged. A single transaction can mean 30–50+ touchpoints across the loan officer, agent, and borrower. Streams, our new AI-powered technology, connects your data, workflows, and communication with the tools agents already use, so you can coordinate follow-up and spot opportunities together. Add Home & Money’s buyer programs for even more purchase business. With 400,000+ real estate professionals on Inside Real Estate, we know what agents want from a lender. Be the lender who brings buyers, not just rates. Explore BoomTown and Streams for lenders.”
What Does It Really Take to Make AI Work in Mortgage Lending? AI is reshaping mortgage operations, but turning that into measurable results requires more than just choosing the right vendor. To understand what separates successful implementations from stalled initiatives, TRUE gathered insights from some of the top respected industry voices spanning lending, technology, and AI innovation. Their newest whitepaper examines the operational, organizational, and strategic decisions lenders need to get right before AI can deliver lasting value. Six Principles for Moving AI from Pilot to Production offers an industry-informed framework for moving forward with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose. Explore the Six Principles.
Credit… remember when it wasn’t controversial?
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Capital markets people will tell you that you can’t hedge credit risk. But you can try to lower costs. Recall that about a month ago Equifax and TransUnion both rolled out new tools aimed at reducing credit-related expenses, giving lenders more flexibility over when they order scores, and what they’re actually paying for.
A few months ago, the Urban Institute sent out a research piece on “Assessing Credit Risk with Classic FICO, FICO 10T, and VantageScore 4.0” that continues to receive airplay. “FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 have similar score distributions and average score levels within this sample. Both average about 13 points above Classic FICO, and they are within roughly 1 point of each other. Both FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 place more borrowers in the top score band. About 31 percent of loans score 800 or above under FICO 10T or VantageScore 4.0, versus 14 percent of loans under Classic FICO. All three models rank-order default risk well. FICO 10T captures the largest share of defaults in the riskiest decile, followed by VantageScore 4.0 and then Classic FICO. Within each model, using the average of the borrower’s scores performs better than using the lower of the borrower’s scores.”
Investors are stuck in the middle. For example, Pennymac has confirmed accepting Vantage without requiring accompanying FICO scores. I believe that NewRez Correspondent accepts Vantage for conventional conforming and high balance primary residences but doesn’t explicitly address a separate FICO delivery requirement. The FHA guidance that allows the 10T model does require you to use the lowest score of all the scores that you pull. Many wish that the FHFA, which oversees Freddie and Fannie, would ‘green light’ the 10T model which they believe is the superior model using trended data… but we have to wait for Bill Pulte, right?
A number of readers have shown frustration with FICO right now and say that the reason the model is being “beat up” is because Fair Isacc has totally changed up its pricing structure: preferred and subscription. Subscription is basically impossible to maintain, and some of the bureaus won’t support it. So, the only option is preferred-which requires FICO on every report.
Social media seems to be ganging up on FICO for not being transparent about the 2027 pricing, yet some will say that the bureaus have never been transparent about any of their pricing for any year. The annual increases in the dollar amount the bureaus charge for credit reports far outweigh the annual increase in FICO’s costs for every year of the past eight years.
One reader wrote, “In 2018 FICO charged 60 cents for a report and the consumer cost was about $50, so this means about $48 dollars of this cost went to the three bureaus and the credit resellers. In 2025 FICO charged $10 for a report and the consumer cost is in the $540+ range, so this means about $510+ dollars of this cost is going to the three bureaus and the credit resellers. The bureaus argue they are just passing on FICO’s increase and maintain their margins, but because their numbers are obscure, it is not possible for the industry to verify this claim. This may be mathematically true from a percentage basis, but from a commonsense basis of actual dollars paid by a borrower it is a stretch.”
The reader went on. “In a hypothetical example, if FICO charged $5 and a bureau charged $40, a consumer pays $45 (ignoring the reseller’s add on). The bureau is earning a gross margin of $40. If FICO then increases its fee to $10, and the bureau wants to ‘maintain its margin,’ the company could charge the same $40 and the consumer would pay $50. However, the bureau doubles their margin to $80 but publicly claims they are only maintaining their margin, so the FICO company gets blamed for 100 percent of the increased cost to the consumer.
Webinars from your own La-Z-Boy
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Mortgage Matters is today at 11AM PT, presented by Lenders One to discuss current topics facing lenders. Dan Sugg, CMB, Chief Mortgage Lending Officer at Michigan First Credit Union, is always a crowd pleaser and will be talking about stubborn closing times, the election & lenders, credit costs, and if affordability can be fixed.
Capital Markets Wrap is Wednesday, November 11, at noon PT. Presented by Polly, the Capital Markets Wrap panel of Ira Selwin, James Baublitz, Kristin Ankeny Bickenbach, and Rob Kessel breaks down the latest developments shaping mortgage capital markets. The discussion covers the market’s reaction to the Fed’s latest decision, the impact of recent elections, continued merger and acquisition activity, the return of spec payups, and expectations for 2027 conforming loan limits. The panel also examines margin and production elasticity across retail, wholesale, and correspondent channels, exploring how lenders are adapting their strategies to current market conditions.
The Big Picture is tomorrow, November 12, at noon PT. Katie Johnson, Advisor at Cavalry Strategies, joins Rob Chrisman, Mitch Kider, and Mike Yu on The Big Picture for a conversation on the policy and regulatory landscape surrounding the mortgage industry. The discussion explores emerging developments, the implications for lenders and housing finance, and what industry leaders should be watching as they plan ahead.
Last Word is Friday, November 13, at 10AM PT. Brian Vieaux, Kevin Peranio, Christy Soukhamneut, and Tracey King break down the week’s biggest market signals, Agency developments, and industry storylines. The discussion focuses on what the industry got right, what it missed, and what lenders should be watching next.
Capital markets: apps shoot up during election week
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U.S. Treasury yields surged higher Tuesday, pushing the 10-year yield toward 5.00 percent and MBS prices down as hawkish Fed commentary and hotter-than-expected October CPI reinforced expectations for additional interest-rate increases, including a potential 50-basis point hike in December (a 25-basis point hike is all but a certainty at this point). Selling pressure intensified following weak demand at both 3-year and 10-year Treasury auctions, with yields closing at their highest levels so far in November. Markets now face continued uncertainty surrounding Fed policy and inflation, with Thursday’s $25 billion 30-year Treasury auction serving as the final major test of investor demand this week.
Mortgage credit availability remains historically constrained, increasing just 0.4 percent in October, with government-backed borrowers experiencing the steepest decline in access to credit over the past five years, particularly lower-income and lower-credit borrowers. As affordability pressures persist and conventional lending remains restrictive, mortgage issuance has increasingly shifted toward Ginnie Mae, which now accounts for a record 42 percent of agency issuance year-to-date and reached 47 percent in October, surpassing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac individually. The greater reliance on FHA and VA financing also changes the risk and performance profile of Agency mortgage-backed securities, as Ginnie Mae borrowers generally have lower credit scores and higher delinquency rates than conventional borrowers. Meanwhile, slowing home-price appreciation and smaller loan balances suggest affordability challenges are continuing to reshape borrower behavior, mortgage production, and investor risk exposure.
Today’s economic calendar includes mortgage applications from MBA, which rose 6.2 percent for the week ending November 6, driven by an 8 percent increase in purchase applications and a 5 percent increase in refinancing activity. Despite the weekly gains, purchase applications remained 18 percent lower and refinance applications 57 percent lower than the same week last year, highlighting continued weakness in year-over-year mortgage demand.
In honor of Veteran’s Day, those ad execs have really done it again with this short video. Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. (And no, I wasn’t doing Capital Markets back on the 11th minute of the 11th day of the 11th month…) Congress passed a resolution in 1926 making it an annual observance, it became a national holiday in 1938, and in 1954 President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation changing the name to Veterans Day to honor all those who served their country during war or peacetime. On this day, the nation honors military veterans (living and dead).
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. STRATMOR’s current blog is, “Those Monthly Payments Go Somewhere.” The Commentary’s podcast is available on all major platforms, including Apple and Spotify.
qoɹ & ǝᴉqqoɹ
(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.)
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