Month: November 2025

When did our business start with the catchy slogans? Stay alive in ’25? Stay in the mix in ’26. It’ll be heaven in ’27. How about, “Try to earn a little revenue every day, day after day.”? Smart mortgage bankers look at units, not dollar volumes. If an LO does $5 million in a month, is that one $5 million loan or ten $500,000 loans? And if your cost per loan is $11,000, on a $5 million loan that is good, since the monthly hit is $11,000, but on the ten loans it would be $110,000. But fixed…

The new phone books are here, the new phone books are here! Oh, wait a minute. The new conventional conforming loan limits are here! The new conventional conforming loan limits are here! True, lenders that are entirely focused on non-Agency products like non-QM (without many of the loan level price adjustments or gfees) may not care too much, but for most, Freddie Mac’s and Fannie Mae’s changes are followed closely. For 2026 we’re up from 2025’s $806,500 to $832,750. This beats the…

Want better affordability? Lower house prices certainly helps, and this article states that more than half of homes in the United States have fallen in price in the last year. Forget interest rates: Certainly, there are fewer willing buyers when they know ahead of time that they may face increasing insurance, tax, or condo fees. (Lenders are doing what they can to control costs, and a recent STRATMOR piece is titled, “Rates Drop, Pipelines Pop: Don’t Let Fulfillment Flop.” ) The strain is…

“Remember to bring up politics at Thanksgiving to save some money on Christmas presents.” “What do tornadoes and Tennessee divorces have in common? Someone’s going to lose a mobile home.” (My father’s family is from there, so I can use that one.) Mobile homes are one segment of the manufactured home biz, and at the other end of the scale there are some grand houses out there that are made in factories… It makes so much sense. Many in the United States believe that manufactured housing, and…

“Six cows were smoking joints and playing poker. That’s right: The steaks were pretty high.” The steaks, uh, stakes, are high when changes to our housing finance system occur, or actions are taken that are negatively impact borrowers or reputations. In a typical organization, the CEO reports to the board of directors. The FHFA oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and with FHFA Director Bill Pulte, he pretty much appointed the boards of Freddie and Fannie but they are ultimately responsible…