As it turns out, not everyone has a loan on their house. In fact, 40 percent of U.S. homes don’t have a mortgage, per the Census Bureau. Should I repeat that? 40%. (Here’s a nice map with state-level information.) What are you, or your company, doing about it? Are you even seeing those potential clients in your database? Regarding new homes… Let’s see, if we’re building 1.5 million housing units a year, and we’re short 6 million housing units, that’s… let’s see… carry the 1… 4 years. Oh, and during that time, housing stock is destroyed by floods, winds, fires, earthquakes… Any other questions? Meanwhile, long gone are the days of the phone “ringing off the hook”: the pandemic was nearly six years ago, and with it, 30-year rates in the 3s. Industry pundits will tell you that there are still too many lenders and too many LOs given where volume (in units) will be this year. And if you get the deal, it will be with low margins. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s are sponsored by Polly. Polly operates the industry’s only vertically integrated capital markets platform, purpose-built to maximize profitability through precision cost reduction, margin expansion, and real-time, loan-level attribution and profitability analysis. Today’s has a dark interview with Johns Hopkins’ Dan Ye on how 90 percent of human capital will be replaced in the next 10 years through AI, and how you can potentially ward off the impending doom.) Products, Programs, and Software for Lenders