I am very happy that my life is perfect. Isn’t yours? When I order scrambled eggs at the diner, the waitress says, “Perfect.” When I pay with a credit card at the car wash, the attendant replies with, “Perfect.” I tell the dry cleaner I’d like my shirts not wrapped in plastic. “Perfect.” Watch out for those “perfects” out there. One thing that was definitely not perfect was the ending of 2022 for residential lenders and their vendors. Just because the calendar turned a day or two doesn’t mean rates have done much, nor margins, nor revenue. Ready for a repeat of the 4th quarter of 2022 in the 1st quarter of 2023? Have vendors and lenders made the necessary cuts, in sales and operations, to keep pace with industry volumes being down 50 percent from a few years ago? How’s your “tech spend” as you enter 2023? (Let’s ask Southwest Airlines how its low tech spend worked out. Speaking of S
As Wells Fargo was smacked upside the head with a $3.7 billion fine by the CFPB, sports news included Mat Ishbia and the Phoenix Suns, and the Senate passed the Improving Access to the VA Home Loan Benefit Act of 2022, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Office of Inspector General released a report with a really long name because that is what bureaucrats do (FHFA Could Further Combat Appraisal Bias by Ensuring That Complaints Are Filed with State Authorities and Ensuring the Enterprises Use Appraisals That Comply with Federal Law), the industry is grappling with continued higher rates. Not that lower rates would release the unicorns from their pens and spread rainbows through the industry, mind you, but they might help. The economists from Redfin (who have seen their stock plunge 94 percent in less than two years) believe that there is a decent chance rates gradually going down to 5.7% by the end of next year. Q1 will be ugly. Seems like after a year of losses in 2022 next y