Have you ever heard the term “scuddle”? It’s an English term from the 1500’s meaning “to wash dishes,” something many of us did plenty of over Christmas. I bring this up because on this date in 1886 Josephine Garis Cochrane patented the world’s first dishwasher! Where would we be without women in schools or the workplace or being educated… Or thinking? (Let’s ask the Taliban in Afghanistan: hopefully you’re following this nightmare.) The United States is nowhere near that, but we have a gender pay gap that has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years or so. In 2020, women earned 84 percent of what men earned, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. Common explanations of this disparity, present across most industries and professions, include the perception that women are less likely than men to negotiate raises and promotions, women’s
Here in Louisville, at AgFirst’s Correspondent Lending Conference, much of the discussion involves going after builder business (“focusing on how fast they get paid so they can pay their subs”), rural programs (“know how to communicate with your clients, or else”), top producer success (“treat your processor like royalty, and fill out the information correctly in the first place,” “set boundaries,” “sell yourself, not rates”) and agriculture. In ag news, the amount of butter the U.S. has in cold storage is down 22 percent compared to a year ago, and the average price of Grade AA Butter is up 80 percent year over year: seasonal milk production is down, there were 11,000 fewer milk-producing cows on U.S. farms compared to a year ago, and dairy products that see seasonal surges like cream cheese and eggnog are eating into supplies of milk that would otherwise go into butter. As butter prices rise, people switch t
The mortgage industry has come a long way from March of 2020, when the Federal Reserve pledged to buy “unlimited” amounts of Treasuries and MBS to stabilize the credit markets. The Fed started to shrink its balance sheet earlier this summer, and at the start of this month ramped up to a reduction rate of $95 billion per month ($60 billion of Treasuries and $35 billion of MBS) with plans to end its purchases of MBS from early payoff proceeds next week. The Fed’s actions in March of 2020 helped stave off margin calls for many lenders, though several European countries are now providing billions of euros in margin call support to European energy companies that need at least $1.5 trillion to cover the cost of their exposure to soaring gas prices. Margin calls eat into companies’ capital, and mortgage companies need all the cash they can get in this higher interest rate environment that has shocked borrower demand and subdued sales. Time on the market for homes i
“I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.” Management teams at lenders and vendors can’t be indecisive in this environment. Who’s going to be right, come Q4 of this year, and Q1 of 2023, which many believe are going to be extremely painful as the purchase market seasonally slows. Are the cuts lenders are making now enough to show warehouse lenders and broker-dealers profitable months and quarters? News continues to hit the tape, including Russia’s first default on debt since 1918. As mentioned in Saturday’s commentary, last week we had the FGMC (First Guarantee) big layoffs/closure of its correspondent and wholesale divisions. There was JPMorgan’s mortgage-related layoffs. That said, what makes headlines these days should be lenders and vendors who aren’t laying people off rather than those that are. How about lenders, servicers, and asset holders watching the Florida (“The Plywood State”) homeowner
All the stories that could be told, and so many that have yet to happen. And now 19 that never will be. It is very hard to go about one’s day, whether one has children or not, or a teacher in their family as I do, or not, given what happened in Uvalde, Texas, yesterday. Or to imagine what being in that classroom was like. And just like after every other mass shooting in the United States, fingers are pointed, lines are drawn, and rhetoric that we’ve all heard before is repeated until it happens again. Ban guns? Better background checks? Create fortresses out of elementary schools? Improve mental health care? We’ll go around and around on the reason(s) and the cure(s). Far be it from a daily commentary on residential lending to adequately address the evil that we witnessed yesterday. But we all do what we can. (Today’s podcast is available here and this week’s is sponsored by Matchbox LLC, igniting ideas for the mortgage industry. Expertise in assistin