While Omicron continues to grab headlines, and economists, investors, and Congress grow increasingly wary of the immense U.S. fiscal expansion as evidenced by rates heading higher, here’s a grabber: Inefficiency is not rewarded. This applies to mortgage originations, or… baths? Who wants to monkey around with taking the time and effort to fill it up at the right depth and temperature when, for $2,700 for the technology, you could verbally tell Kohler’s computer to do it while you’re pulling into your driveway? I’ll take the manual route. (Or if you have $8,000 burning a hole in your pocket, how about the “Stillness Bath” inspired by Japanese forest bathing? I’ll take the American forest bathing experience, thank you very much.) In the technology vein, in Moscow, despite privacy concerns, you can use your face as a ticket to ride the metro. What about technology creating edible weed tickets? Technology is certainly allowing more pe
Anyone born around this time is a Capricorn, and if you believe in horoscopes, they are the most patient and careful, and they are down-to-earth for everything. The broad stroke feature of them is adamancy: they tend to hold on to their own views and never give up before achieving the goal. I like to believe that the goal of nearly every lender is to do more volume in a compliant manner, and the volume part is going to become tougher. According to Curinos, December 2021 mortgage rate-lock volume was down 40% YoY and 17% MoM across all channels, while funded volume decreased 25% YoY and 6% MoM. In the Retail channel, lock volume decreased 37% YoY and 17% MoM, while funded volume was down 25% YoY and 6% MoM. (Curinos sources a statistically significant data set directly from lenders to produce these benchmark figures. Drill deeper into this data here.) Farther up the food chain, do you think it is just your imagination that active real estate listings are down? Nope. The St. Louis Federa