March 2026 - Page 2 of 6 - Chrisman Commentary

The Trigger Leads Era Is Ending. Now What?

Posted on March 23June 4 by Ethan Vieaux

For years, trigger leads have been one of the mortgage industry’s worst open secrets. A borrower applies with one lender, their credit gets pulled, and suddenly their phone lights up with calls, texts, and competing offers from companies they never asked to hear from. That’s exactly what the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act was designed to curb. The law was signed on September 5, 2025 and took effect on March 5, 2026. It amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to sharply limit when…

Mar. 23: LO jobs; subservicing, LOS, verification tools; STRATMOR on tech & borrower experience; builder M&A; F&F buying; rates driven by war tweet

Posted on March 23June 4 by Rob Chrisman

I head to Virginia today for a Southern Trust Mortgage Sales Summit. With 9 million people, Virginia’s population has been steadily increasing, unlike… Japan. Japan’s economy is stagnant and its population of 123 million is slowly declining, resulting in many things, including 9 million vacant houses and Buddhist temples losing relevancy. The country’s solution? ChatGPT-designed AI robot monks. Thanks… I’ll pass. AI may have dominated the conversation at this year’s ICE conference (and…

Mar. 23: LO jobs; subservicing, LOS, verification tools; STRATMOR on tech & borrower experience; builder M&A; rates driven by war tweet

Posted on March 23 by Rob Chrisman

I head to Virginia today for a Southern Trust Mortgage Sales Summit. With 9 million people, Virginia’s population has been steadily increasing, unlike… Japan. Japan’s […]

Mar. 21: A dive into the UWM/TWO deal issues; credit trend papers to check out; you can’t ignore fuel costs; a nod to Chuck Norris

Posted on March 22June 4 by Rob Chrisman

Here we are, heading into the spring planting season, and U.S. fertilizer prices have doubled. In fact, with the Iranian War, the price of oil has moved higher, and while President Trump has said that it is a price worth paying, we are reminded that anything transported has become more expensive with the price of oil, adding to inflation and impacting the price of fixed-income securities and therefore interest rates. (Having your home or office flooded is also expensive, and thousands are…

Mar. 20: LO jobs; Underwriting, insurance, investor reporting products; Two Harbors in play; who’s seeing early payoffs?

Posted on March 20June 4 by Rob Chrisman

On this date, six years ago, Netflix released “Tiger King.” Say what you will about “watching a train wreck” or asking, “Is this the height of our civilization?”, we watched it. I bring this up because, while Joe Exotic (now in prison for animal cruelty) may be stuck in some people’s minds, we, as an industry, shouldn’t forget the magnificent job we did moving to a “work from home environment” and not missing a beat funding loans while people’s spending ground to a halt during the pandemic….

Rebuilding Mortgage Around Data, Context, and Outcomes

Posted on March 19June 4 by Jeremy Potter

For a long time, mortgage technology has been built the way organizations chart themselves on paper, neatly divided into stages, each with its own system, its own owner, and its own version of the truth. One platform captures the lead, another manages the relationship, another takes over the loan file, and yet another steps in at closing. On paper, it looks efficient. In practice, each system becomes very good at doing its own job while knowing very little about what came before or what comes…

Mar. 19: Cap. mkts tech, U/W, LO jobs; Broker, correspondent, subservicer oversight tools IMB cost still $11k per loan; STRATMOR survey; CrossCountry deal

Posted on March 19June 4 by Rob Chrisman

Let’s dive into the mailbag. “Rob, the FHFA announced that Fannie and Freddie will remove ‘certain’ homeowners insurance requirements which may reduce costs. But what are your contacts saying about where their industry-facing priorities are?” Both are focused on leveraging technology and reminding lenders of their existing products. For example, Fannie offers a construction to perm program , as does Freddie Mac , and has “ MH Advantage ” for manufactured homes; Freddie has something…

Market Update – Pain at the Pump

Posted on March 19June 4 by Andrew Stringer

Communicating price directionality has been distilled down to an almost binary composition: oil goes up, rates go up. Oil goes down, rates go down. Thankfully, the volatility of what was initially an unforeseen inflationary variable has begun to subside. That’s not to say oil has moved lower, rather the erratic knee jerk price action has faded. What this suggests is that the market is starting to capitulate to the notion that the war in Iran likely won’t be short lived. And with the Fed…

Why Mortgage Automation Has to Start Earlier Than Most Lenders Think

Posted on March 19June 4 by Steve Butler

For years, the mortgage industry has been talking about automation as the key to lowering costs and speeding up loan production. But when lenders start exploring where to apply technology, the instinct is almost always the same. They go straight to underwriting or post-closing. It makes sense on the surface. Underwriting is expensive. Post-closing is complex. These are large operational departments with highly trained employees, and they sit near the end of the production line where delays…

Mar. 18: Underwriting jobs; servicing, CRM, BI, QC, HELOC, TBA, title products; STRATMOR on servicing; UAD 3.6 warning; oil!

Posted on March 18June 4 by Rob Chrisman

“I started hiding from my boss because I heard good employees are hard to find.” It’s not hard to find good conversations among mortgage professionals, and among the hot topics in the hallways of the ICE Experience is the evolution in data contained in each lien, along with massive appraisal change hitting our biz. I was chatting with Class Valuation’s Mark Walser yesterday about UAD 3.6. (If you’d like a primer on it, and you should, see this write up by Mike Simmons .) On 11/2/26, all…