Month: April 2026

If you want to be paid to move to, or stay in, Detroit, this new program paying big bucks is your chance! Hats off to those marketing folks… Do you know the difference between “used,” “pre-owned,” and “pre-loved?” Marketing. Words matter. Do you know the difference between a mortgage and a lien? A mortgage (“death pledge,” same root as mortician or mortuary) is the loan you take out to buy property, and a lien is a clause in the mortgage contract which gives the lender the right to hold and…

Collections of people who work at lenders, investors, and especially third-party providers spend a chunk of their time in hotels, probably rack up loyalty points with certain hotel chains. They’re an “asset” for you, but a “liability” for hotels. Hotel and motel chains have to literally account for the fact that they technically owe their customers money. This adds up: seven large hotel groups collectively owe $11.6 billion to their guests , squirreled away across millions of loyalty…

Let’s take a look at the mail bag. “Rob, with the war in the Middle East pushing gas prices higher, and transportation costs impacting everything, are you seeing a shift in what lender sales managers are telling their staff? ” Absolutely. We are constantly reminded that interest rates are out of our control, and lenders are focusing on how to grow in a tough market, and training and encouraging MLOs to use the tools they have to help borrowers and “play the long game.” Having humans involved…

My cat Myrtle never had much use for a credit report. Nor credit scores, which came along in 1958, nor a FICO score (1989). Millions of borrowers were analyzed without them. Rumors swirl of the FHFA, overseer of Freddie and Fannie, “operationalizing” VantageScore any day now. VantageScore, created in 2006, is a joint venture by the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). Will it change your lending process? Possibly. Do government regulations change your lending…

“You’ll never guess what this 1980’s actress looks like now !” Okay, that’s an example of a sensationalist click bait headline. Farce aside, nearly everyone changes in 40 years, anyway, as does the population. U.S. population growth slowed sharply between July 2024 and July 2025, rising just 1.8 million people (0.5 percent) to 341.8 million, the weakest growth since the early pandemic. This was driven primarily by a steep 54 percent drop in net international migration from 2.7 million to 1.3…