Our Federal Reserve doesn’t control events around the world, like a ship being stuck in the Suez Canal, or the current Red Sea geopolitical aggression, or China raising chip prices, or OPEC raising gasoline prices, or… or… or. So, consumer and producer prices are always a bit of a wild card. Since they influence the Federal Reserve’s actions, and therefore, in turn, mortgage rates, inflation has certainly been in the news for some years now. (There’s even a joke about inflation at the bottom.) The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is designed to broadly capture changes in the prices of goods and services purchased by U.S. consumers. The largest component is housing, with a weight of 45 percent. Next is transportation at 17 percent, then food and beverages at 14 percent, medical care at 8 percent, education and communication are 6 percent, recreation is 5 percent, other goods and services 3 percent, and then apparel at 2.6 percent. (Today’s podcast can
“Affordable” means many things. There are residential lending industry jokes about making a loan on anything with axles or a license plate. (Like “don’t.”) Being “permanently affixed” is usually in the underwriting guidelines, which makes this story about someone having their driveway stolen very interesting. (In this clip a builder explains how the scam works.) There are plenty of trends in the builder world, one of which is “build for rent.” Instead of just having a house here or there, BFR homes are clustered together and form a community, much like an apartment community, and with many of the same amenities, essentially an apartment building as a defined community. This new “asset class” even has its own conference. The category is usually not a good thing for IMBs or small banks or credit unions. (Today’s podcast can be found here, and this week’s is sponsored by the STRATMOR Group, the data
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, s
This morning I Head East to Chicago for a handful of days. If you’ve wondered what a pilot sees when landing at O’Hare, here’s a mesmerizing video. (What is the tallest building in Chicago? The library, because it has so many stories.) From coast to coast lenders and vendors are eyeing the MBA’s volume predictions for 2023 and stay ahead by reducing overhead. In the furor over cutting costs, a cottage industry has sprung up helping lenders review their vendor arrangements. Given that product, price, and service are what vendors sell, products and service are usually, if not more, important than price, but companies like MTG Services review pricing schemes. (No, this isn’t a paid advertisement; contact James Zeldin with questions.) Today’s podcast, posted after 5:30AM PT, is sponsored by Appraisal Logistics, a full-service AMC licensed in all 50 states. AIM-Port’s robust integrations, custom automations, and granular reporting tools are d
Let’s have a non-mortgage opening paragraph. Today is “Remember Pearl Harbor Day.” (If you like history, you gotta click on that link and see what is on there. Do a search.) The richest person in the world in the 1940s was Henry Ford, and when he died in 1947 his worth was about $200 billion in current dollars. (John D. Rockefeller became the first billionaire in 1916.) I mention these snapshots because one New Jersey industry vet wrote to me saying, “There are about 720 billionaires living in the USA, almost 1/4 of worldwide billionaires. The Administration is hiring 87,000 people to oversee the U.S. billionaires. That’s a 120-1 ratio. Ironically, after 40 years, the IRS never found Trump’s misreporting even though they audited him every year. Perhaps the IRS should not hire 87,000 but hire the top 720 CPA firms (paying them more than private practices) to examine the books of the 720 billionaires.” (Today's podcast is here and