Why aren’t there 103’s on rate sheets? With 30-year mortgage rates firmly in the 7 percent range, the market has moved too fast for any kind of substantive premiums for lenders or MLOs to offer borrowers. Put another way, there aren’t any securities trading at prices like 101 or 103 that offer above par pricing that can be passed along. And with volumes continuing to decline, it will take a while for the secondary markets to catch up with the primary markets. As one fellow capital markets vet wrote to me, “I don’t even see premium pricing in the capital markets. There have been days where at best I saw par pricing on 6.5s, maybe 50 bps above. Even high-quality borrowers with FICOs above 780 and reasonable ratios need to bring money to the table. On that note, anything to add would be a nod to LLPAs in general, and the LLPAs that were handed down by the FHFA over the last year for 2nd homes and investments… With high bond coupons trading right on top of one another, anyone of those price adjustments places them around 7 percent if you want to originate anywhere close to par. You could also note correspondent investors can and will cap your execution price, so while you could originate 7.75 percent and they might even provide pricing for it, there’s no price pick up from a 7.625.” (Today’s podcast is available here and features an interview with TRUE’s Bob Noble on using AI to create accurate data that powers automation and optimizes every step of the lending lifecycle. This week’s is sponsored by SimpleNexus, the homeownership platform that unites the people, systems, and stages of the mortgage process into one seamless, end-to-end solution that spans engagement, origination, closing and business intelligence. Click here to learn more about SimpleNexus, an nCino company.)