Chrisman Commentary - Daily Mortgage News

While U.S. stock market strength remains concentrated in the highly profitable "Magnificent Seven" tech companies, mortgage demand continues to weaken, with September 2026 funded volume down 15% year over year and 10% month over month as retail 30-year conforming rates edged up to 6.58 percent.

Robbie interviews Floify’s Maggie Swanson on creating fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM, and more, without custom development.

September mortgage prepayments slowed sharply as rising rates left just 0.5 percent of mortgages economically refinanceable, a trend likely to persist through year-end and support servicing-heavy originators like RKT and RITM, while notable differences in servicer behavior (with Rocket/Quicken and AmeriHome among the fastest and Idaho HFA consistently among the slowest) underscore the importance of selective positioning.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development.

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

With about 10,000 Americans turning 62 each day, companies should consider offering HECM products, especially as mortgage origination volumes are expected to decline roughly 8–10 percent and rising rates may further pressure margins and forecasts. U.S. fixed-income markets face mounting pressure from high debt, inflation, oil shocks, and an uneven AI boom, while restrictive Fed policy and rising Treasury yields have pushed 30-year mortgage rates to 7.49 percent, worsening housing affordability.

Robbie interviews Gather Markets’ Wayne Brown on recurring challenges for banks and originators in finding, matching, and efficiently processing CRA-eligible loans, leading to Gather’s focus on using data, technology, and compliance infrastructure to connect the right loans with the right bank buyers.

Persistent fiscal deficits, heavy Treasury issuance, high oil prices, and geopolitical risks are keeping long-term rates elevated and the yield curve steepening, with upcoming Treasury auctions and CPI data serving as key market tests.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development.

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

Ahead of next week’s National MBA conference, the mortgage industry is seeing heightened uncertainty, including layoffs, shifting Fannie/Freddie market-share dynamics, weak builder and wholesale-lender stocks, and significant pressure on UWM following hedging issues and a securities-fraud lawsuit tied to its Two Harbors transaction.

Robbie interviews Ralo's Arjun Lalwani on using AI to reduce mortgage origination costs and operational work while preserving human support for advice and emotionally significant moments.

The outlook remains data-dependent as supply-driven inflation could allow the Fed to tighten more gradually; higher rates are pressuring mortgage originators and title insurers, but mortgage insurers remain relatively attractive given resilient fundamentals and depressed valuations.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development.

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

Mortgage markets face a challenging outlook, with industry uncertainty, lender/vendor tensions, and persistent inflationary pressures from oil, deficits, AI-related debt issuance, and tariffs providing little reason to expect rates to decline soon.

Robbie interviews Polly’s Adam Carmel on where capital markets tech is heading: AI-native foundation, unified operating system, and the first firm built to run on it. Introducing PollyOS/Hedge.

And U.S. rates are under pressure as persistent services inflation and growing global fiscal concerns (particularly in France) raise term premiums and could drive further curve steepening ahead of this week’s 10- and 30-year Treasury auctions.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development.

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

There is a significant opportunity for lenders to expand the pool of potential homebuyers by better understanding and addressing the financial anxiety, overwhelm, and distrust that hold many younger, otherwise qualified millennials and Gen Z consumers back from pursuing homeownership.

Robbie interviews Mortgage Education Institute's Andrew Conner on helping loan officers and small-to-midsize mortgage companies turn required continuing education and compliance from a burdensome, reactive “check-the-box” exercise into engaging, practical training and proactive support they can understand and apply. 

And the mortgage market is increasingly purchase-driven as elevated rates have sharply reduced refinancing activity, while Agency MBS supply remains strong due to active purchase lending and the continued securitization of previously originated loans, resulting in higher-coupon securities, more stable prepayments, and greater duration risk.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Floify, the mortgage industry’s leading point-of-sale platform. Dynamic Apps, which can be seen at booth 600 during MBA Annual next week, lets lenders create fully customizable loan applications for any loan type, including HELOCs, construction, agricultural lending, non-QM and more, without custom development.

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

U.S. home prices have far outpaced inflation since 2011 while income gains have been more uneven, highlighting worsening affordability and inequality, as FHFA pursues changes to credit scoring and appraisal standards amid questions about implementation, market access, and regulatory oversight.

Robbie interviews Eris Innovations' Geoffrey Sharp on options of SOFR interest-rate swap futures, launched in June on CME Group. These are designed to give mortgage originators asymmetric protection against pipeline pull-through and mortgage servicing risk while reducing basis risk relative to Treasury hedges. With Eris swap futures already reaching $85 billion in open interest and mortgage production becoming more negatively convex, the key question is how quickly independent mortgage banks and their risk-management providers will adopt the new optionality.

And long-term yields may be approaching a self-stabilizing level, as the recent Treasury rally appears driven more by technical positioning and seller fatigue than a fundamental shift, with payrolls now key to determining whether the move can persist amid lingering inflation, Fed-policy, and geopolitical uncertainty.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. 

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

Q4 opens with heightened uncertainty and industry change, from accelerating lender/company transitions and New York Life Investment Management taking majority control of Invictus/Verus to rapid Agency policy and appraisal changes from FHFA, leaving lenders navigating a market increasingly defined by consolidation, evolving non-Agency demand, and shifting regulatory requirements.

Robbie interviews Gateless' Mike Brown on how the influx of AI vendors is creating decision-making uncertainty for lenders around vendor longevity, regulatory compliance, and industry experience, even as automation becomes increasingly important for handling fluctuating volumes with fewer people. Adoption hinges on building trust among loan officers, processors, and underwriters, with vendors using auditing and testing to address edge cases across products, while broader questions remain around how regulations will accommodate agentic AI and whether appraisal processes can be accelerated without compromising compliance.

And September ended with a technically driven bond selloff despite mixed economic data and a planned $6 billion Treasury buyback, pushing the 10-year yield to 5.29% after rising 56bp for the month, while MBS weakened modestly; attention now shifts to today’s Treasury buyback, a packed slate of Fed speakers and manufacturing data, and tomorrow’s payrolls report for potential catalysts.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. 

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

We start by looking at three unresolved issues: the tradeoff between housing affordability and protecting existing homeowners, potential ethical concerns around choosing whichever credit-scoring model helps a borrower qualify, and the challenge of protecting AI from foreign attempts to exploit or “steal” it. Robbie interviews Fairway Independent Mortgage’s Steve Jacobsen on the evolving nature of mortgage lending, product expansion, leadership and more. And the bond selloff continues despite weakening economic data, with long-term yields surging amid inflation, federal borrowing, issuance, hedging, and positioning pressures, leaving the market dependent on materially weaker PCE or payrolls data to break the bearish momentum.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. 

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

Despite a record-low Hispanic poverty rate of 13.9 percent in 2025, down from 21.9 percent in 1973, Hispanics remain disproportionately affected by poverty and continue to face room for improvement in homeownership, underscoring persistent economic and housing disparities highlighted during National Hispanic Heritage Month. Robbie interviews Maxwell’s John Paasonen and PLACE’s Chris Stuart on why the industry is shifting toward massive tech ecosystems instead of standalone point solutions and how combining brokerage tech and mortgage infrastructure creates the ultimate "one-stop-shop" for the consumer. And a resilient U.S. economy and persistent oil-driven inflation are pushing investors toward a higher-for-longer rate outlook, intensifying the Treasury selloff as the 10-year yield reaches 5.25 percent despite contained inflation expectations, while the key risk is that sustained energy costs eventually weaken consumers and growth enough to force a sharp repricing toward lower rates.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. 

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

Treasury yields’ surge to nearly two-decade highs increasingly looks like a structural repricing rather than a temporary selloff, as hawkish Fed policy, resilient data and persistent inflation expectations push markets toward a roughly 70 percent chance of an October hike, while investors debate how much economic damage the Fed will tolerate, and whether rate hikes can meaningfully address supply-driven inflation before 5 percent+ yields expose broader cracks in the economy. Robbie interviews Falcon Capital Advisors’ Sam Valverde on the general importance of the bond market, an analysis of recent rate hikes, future fixed-income projections, and the potential downstream risks to the housing market. And buydown mortgages are becoming a meaningful affordability tool in FHA and VA lending, with $45 billion outstanding, as temporary rate reductions help borrowers manage high mortgage costs while attracting stronger-credit borrowers and offering MBS investors some early prepayment protection that fades as the loan resets toward its full note rate.

This week’s podcasts are presented by Gateless, intelligent automation that gives you the competitive edge. Gateless solutions reduce costs, deliver a superior borrower experience, and mitigate risk by automating tasks and decisions historically made by people. 

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.