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Welcome to Thought Leadership, your resource for insights and expertise in the mortgage industry. Explore articles, analyses, and interviews covering the latest trends, regulatory updates, and market dynamics. Whether you're a lender, broker, investor, or industry professional, Chrisman Commentary's Thought Leadership aims to provide the knowledge needed to navigate the evolving mortgage landscape.
The 2025 NextGen Homebuyer Report: Key Trends and Insights
The 2025 NextGen Homebuyer Report, conducted in partnership with National MI, provides an in-depth analysis of the evolving homeownership...
Kristin Messerli
5 hours ago2 min read
What’s the Real Cost to Hedge a Mortgage Pipeline?
Home lending is one of the few industries where the customer can lock in a future rate and price. Put another way, if you went to the...
James Hedvall
5 hours ago2 min read
The U.S. Economy in the First Quarter of 2025: Growth, Challenges, and Outlook
The first quarter of 2025 presented a mixed picture of the U.S. economy and housing market’s future. Tight monetary policy and...
A&D Analytics Team
6 days ago2 min read
Housing Policy is Moving Fast – Builders, Get Ready
Agency heads are in place. Scott Turner's publicly teased Opportunity Zones 2.0 & selling federal land for housing. The administration is...
Rich Swerbinsky
Apr 71 min read
Tariffs, Trump, and the Economic Fallout: A Condensed Analysis
President Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs last week, but the financial markets weren’t impressed—stocks dropped roughly 5 percent,...
Robbie Chrisman
Apr 73 min read
The Increasing Cost of EfficiencyÂ
Capacity planning is one of those things you learn through experience—sometimes the hard way. Back in college, when one of my roommates...
Marcus Lam
Apr 73 min read
The Interest Rate Guessing Game
I am asked all the time where I think rates will be in six months. My answer, after I say that I can’t even predict where I’m going to...
James Hedvall
Apr 12 min read
The Power of Third-Party Vendor Relationships in Mortgage Lending
Third-party vendors have become essential to mortgage lending, supporting everything from loan origination to post-close servicing. As...
John Wines
Mar 313 min read
The Housing Market’s Wild, Wacky Tale
(A Story in the Style of Dr. Seuss) The builders, they built, but they couldn't build more, The costs were too high, the regs were a...
Rich Swerbinsky
Mar 312 min read
An Open Letter to CFPB Leadership
Dear Messrs. McKernan, Vought, Calabria, Musk, et. al., I am the author of a cynical, snarky and heavily footnoted free mortgage industry...
Brian S. Levy
Mar 2411 min read
Your Home’s Value Could Fall 15-20% - Here’s What’s Coming
If you're a homeowner, life is good right now. You’re sitting on a low-rate mortgage, building equity, and watching home values climb....
Rich Swerbinsky
Mar 242 min read
Reshaping Home Finance: The Future of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and U.S. Mortgage Policy
The vast majority of residential mortgages in the United States are originated, underwritten, funded, and ultimately sold in accordance...
Rob Chrisman
Mar 244 min read
The Futility of Rate Predictions: Why Forecasting Interest Movements is a Gamble
The interest rate markets have a way of humbling almost all the ‘experts’ and the very first thing you learn in Secondary Marketing is...
James Hedvall
Mar 212 min read
The Evolving Role of Appraisal Management Companies in the Mortgage Industry
In recent years, appraisal management companies (AMCs) have played an increasingly vital role in the mortgage industry, addressing...
Sam Grashoff
Mar 213 min read
Mortgage Lending’s Power Shift: Why Banks Are Poised to Take Back Business
Over the past 15 years, the mortgage lending landscape has completely flipped. In 2010, depository institutions originated 81% of all...
Rich Swerbinsky
Mar 192 min read
Four Ways to Optimize the Underwriting Process
In today's evolving financial landscape, the current approach to underwriting is falling short and fails to accommodate the profiles of...
Chrissy Brown
Mar 143 min read
How Technology Transformed Secondary Marketing – And What We Shouldn’t Forget
In today’s mortgage industry, technology drives efficiency, speed, and accuracy like never before. But while we celebrate the...
James Hedvall
Mar 102 min read
Prepayment Speeds Hit Seasonal Lows, but March Could Bring a Rebound
Prepayment speeds, aka how quickly borrowers pay off their loans ahead of schedule (whether through refinancing or selling their homes),...
Robbie Chrisman
Mar 72 min read
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