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Month: February 2026

Where Blockchain Actually Creates Value in Housing Finance

Posted on by Eric Lapin

For years, I have been asked the same question in different forms. Where does blockchain actually belong in mortgage and housing finance, and where is it being oversold? It is a fair question, especially in an industry that has seen waves of technology arrive with bold promises and limited practical impact. The short answer is this. Blockchain is not here to replace core mortgage systems, and it is not a consumer-facing product story. It is an infrastructure story. When applied in the right…

Welcome to UAD Evolution

Posted on by Michael Simmons

There is a tectonic shift that’s taking place in the appraisal space right now – and it promises to reverberate through every nook and cranny of the lending world. Mortgage brokers, direct lenders, independent mortgage bankers, banks, credit unions, investors, underwriters, reviewers, state review boards (and their investigators), amcs, appraisal educators, plus technology and software providers are all impacted in substantive ways. On November 2 nd of 2026, all appraisals, to be eligible…

Designing Technology Where (True)Work Actually Happens

Posted on by Ethan Winchell

For years, a lot of enterprise technology has been built around an idealized vision of how work should happen, not how it actually does. Nowhere is that gap clearer than in mortgage lending. Despite massive investment in software, productivity in core mortgage operations has barely improved over the last seven years. One simple data point says it all: the average fulfillment employee today closes roughly the same number of loans per month as they did in 2018. There was a brief spike during…

Feb. 5: Non-QM AE jobs; Mgt. review, BBYS, digital HELOC, non-QM products; Opinions on credit fixes; IMB underway

Posted on by Rob Chrisman

“I was wondering where the dish soap was. And then it Dawned on me.” Here in Utah, where the median age is 31 (versus Maine’s 45) with lots of younger families, Bed Bath & Beyond outlets were a big deal. But the chain declared bankruptcy three years ago, dissolved its physical presence, and now the name has come roaring back and is entering the mortgage biz. Yup, another competitor for lenders come July: Bed Bath & Beyond is acquiring Tokens.com “to develop a blockchain-based investment and…

Feb. 4: LO, sales, AE jobs; blockchain, NOO HELOC, RON tools; Better.com CEO’s thoughts; IMB conference observations; CFPB update

Posted on by Rob Chrisman

“I used to brag about how late I stayed up at conferences. Now I brag about how early I went to bed.” Have you ever seen a group of mortgage lenders on the last morning of a 3-day conference? Well, here is the equivalent in the animal kingdom, and it’s not even iguanas plummeting from trees. Besides the end of the quick lived shutdown, and the continued M&A environment ( Own Up to be acquired by Experian being the latest example) one of the topics in the hallways at the IMB, especially…

Feb. 3: Customer intelligence, HELOC, Uplist’s recapture, construction products; rates are driven by markets; IMB hallway report

Posted on by Rob Chrisman

Our meat prices have gone up… Cattle herd numbers at a 75-year low. There ain’t nothing Jerome Powell or the Fed can do about drought and high grain prices. To deal with rising operating costs, many U.S. cattle farmers reduced the size of their herds, and some got out of the business altogether. As a result, the U.S. cattle inventory is the smallest it’s been since 1951. Regarding rate movement, the bond markets often do the Fed’s job for it, and so whatever the Fed’s Open Market Committee…