The REIT’s Newrez arm suffered a servicing valuation hit, but reported gains across each of its origination channels.

Heard in the hallways here at the MBA’s annual convention in December. “I wonder if the MBA’s volume estimate of $2.3 trillion for 2025 includes all of the hard money deals that I’m doing? Me and every broker I know is doing them: why make 1 point when I can make 3-4 points?” “I’m exhausted. The time change Sunday can’t come soon enough.” “Every lender out there should be ready to help borrowers regardless of the outcome of the election. Betting on a coin toss is no path to success.” “Rob, I hear a lot about ‘heavy lifts.’ Where I come from, that means ‘pain in the a$$.” “I’ll be happy when Fannie and Freddie stop jacking up their gfees without warning… Don’t they know that hurts our pipelines?” “Have you seen all the vendors advertising AI in their booths?” I have indeed, but it is certainly a hot issue, although whether it is life changing remains to be seen. On today’s Mortgages with Millennials, Credit Karma’s Arun Mohan will be interviewed about AI, technology, and how it may impact the mortgage workforce. (Today’s podcast can be found here, and this week’s is sponsored by Truv. Truv lets applicants verify income, employment, assets, insurance, and switch direct deposits. Unlock the power of open finance, with Truv. Hear an interview with Gulf Coast Bank’s Joe Uzee on the two sides of the national flood insurance debate and his thoughts on how we can lower insurance premiums and promote home affordability.) Lender and Broker Software, Services, and Products

Mortgage rates tend to be updated only once per day.  Lenders set rates based on trading levels in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) which are essentially bonds that are tied to cash flows from groups of mortgages.  MBS move throughout the day much the same way that US Treasuries do.  If they move enough, lenders can issue mid-day changes to the rates they published earlier in the day. Today began with Treasury yields in higher territory and MBS in weaker territory.  That almost always means that mortgage rates will come out higher than the previous day and indeed they did!  The average lender moved up to 7.08% from 7.00% on a top tier 30yr fixed scenario.   Bonds improved in the afternoon by enough for lenders to reprice.  That brought the average down to 7.03% which is obviously still a bit higher than yesterday’s 7.00%.  Bottom line, today’s rates marketed another multi-month high. Expect volatility potential to remain elevated through the 2nd half of next week at the very least with each day between now and then at risk of fairly substantial movement.  The riskiest days are this Friday, next Wednesday, and next Thursday due the jobs report, election, and Fed announcement. 

As we’ve noted on many occasions in the past few years, JOLTS (the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) used to be a non-event in terms of economic data moving markets.  That changed in an obvious way over the past 2 years and there have been a few weeks where it was arguably the biggest market mover. That level of impact has subsided in recent months, but it’s still moving the needle as seen with this morning’s weaker-than-expected result.  Were it not for the stronger Consumer Confidence data, we’d likely be seeing a better recovery.  As it stands, bonds are still in moderately weaker territory heading into the late AM hours.

Figure Technology Solutions introduced a “piggyback” home equity line of credit platform for its lending partners.

Positive feedback from participants in existing programs led to the decision to expand them in order to assist more lenders.

As it gets ready for more competition from VantageScore, the company also did not comment on reports of yet another impending price hike.

The longtime JPMorgan Chase CEO discussed the Basel III endgame capital rules, interchange fees and open banking during a fireside chat at the American Bankers Association’s annual conference.

A California branch manager claims Movement Mortgage compensated her less than her male counterparts and mislabeled her employment status.