12 Jun, 2025

“I was always a home builder, but lately I’ve developed an apartment complex.” Here in Florida, so many structures are made of stucco because stucco is fairly inexpensive, creates a great finished look, and is easy to apply to homes constructed with concrete blocks. But it can be damaged as a house shifts and settles over time. Companies like Icon, or COBOD International, are making news with their 3-D printed homes (and communities) that build houses layer by layer with cement-based material. But they have generated more headlines than buildings: “Building houses that work twice as good in half the time at the half the price” is a noble goal. The method is largely used to construct walls while conventional methods are used for foundations, floors, roofs, and finishes. Builders have created innovation arms… Lennar, for example, has LenX). Speaking of which, MBA Chairperson Laura Escobar echoed what every MLO in Florida, and most around the nation, know: make homeowner’s insurance and HOA fees part of the pre-qual discussion. (After 6:30AM PT today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s are presented by Flyhomes, the leading wholesale lender for Buy Before You Sell solutions. Whether your borrowers run into DTI issues, need to unlock home equity for down payment, make a stronger, cash-like offer, or even move potentially with no cash out of pocket, Flyhomes provides a full suite of financial products to help them move forward, before selling their current home. Hear an interview with Jeremy Potter and Brian Levy on how the conforming credit box that once offered liquidity to the mortgage market is now fading into obsolescence with the rise of products like non-QM and other creative lending solutions.)

26 Mar, 2025

The first 3 days of this week have all generally seen yields at the highest levels in a month (or perhaps in “at least 28 days” considering Feb’s day count). While that doesn’t sound like an overly pleasant turn of events for the bond/mortgage market, the reality is far less threatening, for now.  It is true that if today’s session closes at present levels, they will be the weakest since Feb 24th, but it’s also true that those levels aren’t too far from recent lows.  The modal range floor is 4.19% in 10yr yields. We’re just under 4.36% this morning–just gently testing the 4.34% range ceiling. Some technicians would argue that the opening gap from Feb 25th still needs to be filled before we find out what’s next.