Unlike lenders who are dealing with 8 percent on rates sheets, sports fans and sports bars are reveling: NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, all at the same time… And Philadelphia is in the thick of it. A lot of halftimes. Is our industry “down 20-0 at halftime?” Here are the thoughts of Fairway CEO Steve Jacobson on not giving up, having shots taken at you, and using the tools lenders and LOs have to keep helping their clients, including technology. The word “technology” was mentioned about 4,698 times this week at the conference in Philly. If you’re wondering what a great use for AI is, it is summed up in this two-panel cartoon. Gallus Insights CEO Augie Del Rio summed it up nicely. “A machine will always beat a person. A person with a machine will always beat a machine.” But one of the messages this week was how lenders are shedding, yes shedding, expensive unused technology in an effort to cut costs. It is easier said than done, but IT staff
It isn’t as if building or lending products, or ways of doing business, were handed down by Trappist monks. Change is always afoot, for better or worse. What is old is new again. Teachers are moving to oral exams to counteract AI and ChatGPT, similar to ancient Greek and Roman times. In the West and Southwest, adequate water rights and supplies have always been contentious but have resurfaced (get it?) with news that may impact other cities and towns: Arizona began limiting approvals for new developments within the Phoenix area. It’s hard to build large affordable housing developments or swaths of housing in general if there is no water. Or road or sewage capacity. For fans of tiny homes, what is old is new again, and the Sears catalog kit houses (sold between 1908 and 1942) of old are back at Home Depot: Here’s 837 square feet for $43,000, 540 square feet for $44,000, and 444 square feet for $32k. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - June 1, 2023 - Mike Vough, vice president of hedging and loan trading products for Optimal Blue, a division of Black Knight, Inc. , has been chosen by HousingWire s. | June 1, 2023
Things are always changing. No bagpipe player I saw growing up looked, or played, like this. The MBA’s forecast for 2023 volumes changed, and here’s the latest by the MBA on 2023’s originations: $1.8 trillion. Technology is always changing. No, this Commentary is not produced by ChatGPT, nor will it ever be, unlike lesser publications. But if you’re a teacher, like my daughter with her classroom full of 7th graders, or a professor, how do you know that the paper turned in by a student wasn’t produced by AI? (Speaking of which, thank you to everyone who wrote yesterday that egg-laying chickens were killed by the “flu” not “the flue”… I should have caught that.) Economic conditions are always changing as well, and yesterday’s Federal Reserve Open Market Committee change of 25 basis points higher for its targeted overnight Fed Funds rate (what banks charge one another for overnight deposits) certainly sent a stat
Our industry continues to be battered. Starwood Capital-backed Reverse Mortgage Funding and its parent company Reverse Mortgage Investment Trust have filed for bankruptcy. Inlanta Mortgage told the state of Wisconsin it plans to wind down its business. Switching gears, to celebrate the first day of December, spend 5 minutes taking one of my favorite quizzes, focused on figuring out where you’re from based on the words you use for certain common things. (What do you call the little bug that rolls up into a ball when you touch it? Sneakers versus tennis shoes? Y’all versus you guys?) It’s uncanny! What isn’t uncanny are the number of predictions we’ve heard about a recession, many dating from nearly a year ago. Recessions generally mean lower rates. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan says that a "mild recession" is likely next year but that concerns about a more severe downturn appear to be abating, noting households have maintained st