As Brian B. reminds me, “In the New England you can tell the changing of the seasons by the changing color of the leaves. In Florida you can tell the changing of the seasons by the changing colors of the license plates.” Speaking of moves, geography, and distance, if you’re a lender or a vendor, how’s your 2023 travel and entertainment budget shaping up? I figured. The Mortgage Bankers Association believes (some say optimistically) that total mortgage origination volume will decline to $2.05 trillion in 2023 from the $2.26 trillion expected in 2022. The “pie” will shrink, and every lender is striving to increase customer service. Under the category of “Know your clients,” buyers who bought homes in the year from June 2021 to June 2022 moved a median of 50 miles away from their previous residences, a huge increase. Over the preceding five years it was pretty much flat at a median of 15 miles, which was the highest going back to 2005. Many folks are leaving for the country: 48 percent were in small towns and rural areas, up from 32 percent going to the country in the year from June 2020 to June 2021. Companies don’t aren’t status-quo either. Luxury Mortgage is going away (note below). For example, Bay Equity’s parent Redfin Corp.’s stock price sank to record low after an Oppenheimer analyst downgraded the stock and said the real estate company’s model is “fundamentally flawed.” Ouch. (Today’s podcast is available here and this week’s is sponsored by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and award-winning developer of mobile-first technology for the modern mortgage lender. Listen to an interview with Change Wholesale’s Alan Lindeke on CDFI’s and getting more customers in a shrinking environment.)
Mortgage Rates Moderately Higher
It's been hard to find an interesting new angle on mortgage rates over the past 2+ weeks. They've been remarkably flat during that time after falling precipitously in response to the November 10th inflation data. Because rates are based on the bond market and...
