“Rob, everyone knows that the GSEs (Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae) don’t use credit scores for loan approval. They use it for pricing. The GSEs have created their own scoring system and it’s just the investors that utilize the score.” True dat. It takes a while to test the impact of credit scores on defaults, delinquencies, pricing, and prepayment speeds, and staff in our biz interested in any Agency pilot programs about credit are encouraged to reach out to their F or F representatives. People seem to like lists and rankings. ATTOM released its ResiScore, an AI-powered neighborhood intelligence offering that ranks residential areas based on projected housing market performance. If you have a client in the market to buy a home, you certainly welcome lower prices and lower rates (although if they’re also selling a home, you want to get the best possible price on that). But higher prices impact affordability much more than rates. Realtor.com estimates that one of two things would need to happen for monthly mortgage payments to fall back to 2019 levels: Household incomes would need to rise 56 percent, or mortgage rates would need to fall to 2.65 percent. In other words, it’s not happening anytime soon. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by JazzX, the first true end-to-end AI platform built for mortgage. From application to underwriting, JazzX is a new operating model that helps you scale growth, boost productivity, and transform how your team performs. Hear an interview with Automax.ai’s Humza Ahmed on how residential property appraisal technology is evolving, the way it’s built for UAD 3.6, and what is dramatically reducing turnaround time.)