This is about the time you stop saying “Happy New Year” to people because you’ve forgotten who you’ve said it to and who you haven’t. Lenders and vendors are not forgetting the second half of 2022 as they plan for 2023, and widespread travel and entertainment cutbacks are standard fare. It is hard to justify spending $3-5k for each person to go to a conference just to “wave the company flag” when you just went through another RIF and you’re hoping to break even in the first quarter. Zillow has not forgotten anything, especially since it has nothing to remember. Zillow doesn’t have to remember what the inside of my house looks like, since it has never set foot in my hovel. But Zillow has a staff to crunch numbers, and tells us that, given the FHFA/Freddie/Fannie conforming loan limit changes for 2023, more than 2 million U.S. homes no longer require a jumbo loan. (Remember that, since jumbo loans don’t have a g-fee, some of their rates are actually less than conforming conventional loans.) Redfin’s never set foot in my house either, but thanks to “big data” is telling us that buyers received concessions (like repair money and rate buydown funding) in a record 42 percent of home sales in the fourth quarter, up from 31 percent a year earlier. Yes, places like Phoenix and Las Vegas are back in the news. (Today’s podcast is sponsored by MCT and its Hedge Advisory: Comprehensive capital markets software and services that empower secondary marketing performance.) Lender and Broker Software, Products, and Services