Housing Policy and the Effects on Pricing | October 21, 2024
Welcome to this week’s episode of Optimal Insights.
In this episode, our experts discuss the critical intersection of housing policy and market dynamics as the election approaches. They explore how political platforms from both major candidates could influence housing supply and affordability, the current state of the housing market, including recent data on housing starts and permits, and highlight the significant impact of government policies on pricing for borrowers.
Key Takeaways:
- Current economic indicators show stable rates, but refinancing activity has significantly declined.
- Understanding policy impacts on pricing is crucial for navigating the mortgage market effectively.
- Innovative programs like mission score products aim to address underserved communities in housing.
- Education on available incentives and products is essential for originators in the mortgage industry.
Tune in to gain valuable insights to help you stay ahead and maximize your profitability in the ever-evolving mortgage landscape. #OptimizeYourAdvantage #MaximizeProfitability
Hosts and Guests:
Hosts:
- Jim Glennon, VP of Hedging & Trading Client Services, Optimal Blue
- Jeff McCarty, Director of Hedging Product, Optimal Blue
Guests:
- Alex Hebner, Hedge Account Manager
- Kevin Foley, Director of Product Management
Production Team:
- Executive Producer: Sara Holtz
- Producer: Matt Gilhooly
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Optimal Blue, LLC.
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Keywords: Real-time data insights, Capital markets commentary, Mortgage industry, Profitability, Lenders, Investors, Rate fluctuations, Mortgage landscape, Expert advice, Optimal Blue, Secondary marketing automation, Pricing accuracy, Margin protection, Risk management, Originators, Originations
Mentioned in this episode:
Be part of the event that will shape mortgage innovation and help to maximize lenders’ profitability. Don’t miss the inaugural Optimal Blue Summit from February 3–5, 2025, at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina. Secure your spot and register today – summit.optimalblue.com
Transcript
Welcome to Optimal Insights, your weekly source.
Jeff McCarty:For real time rate data and expert.
Alex Hebner:Capital markets commentary brought to you by Optimal blue.
Alex Hebner:Let's dive in and help you maximize your profitability this week.
Jim Glennon:Welcome to Optimal Insights, your weekly source for timely market analysis and expert commentary from Optimal Blue.
Jim Glennon:I'm your host Jim Glennon, vice president of hedging and trading client services at Optimal Blue.
Jim Glennon:Our clients and industry partners have long relied on optimal blue for trusted insights and commentary, and these podcasts are an evolution of our commitment to keeping the industry informed.
Jim Glennon:Let's dive into today's episode.
Jim Glennon:Welcome podcast crew.
Jim Glennon:Today we have with us, as always, Jeff McCarty, director of product management.
Jim Glennon:We have Kevin Foley, also director of product management, and Alex Hebner, our resident econ and market expertise.
Jim Glennon:Welcome everybody.
Jim Glennon:Today we've got some really good content for you.
Jim Glennon:We're going to talk to Alex here in a sec about what's going on in the world and potentially some things to look forward to with the election.
Jim Glennon:Then we're going to continue with the second part of our series on loan products and pricing and how the markets, but also primarily today, we'll talk about how policy is affecting the growth of pricing and just the breadth of the products that we're seeing.
Jeff McCarty:Obviously all eyes on the election for the next few weeks.
Jeff McCarty:As we've been talking about, we'll get really into the weeds and some policy from both of the candidates today.
Jeff McCarty:A good time to talk about policy overall and how that affects pricing because obviously policy and politicians views on policy is top of mind right now.
Jeff McCarty:So a good time to review all of that.
Jim Glennon:Yeah, a ton going on in the meantime.
Jim Glennon:We also have a non farm number coming up next week.
Jim Glennon:We've got the Fed most.
Jim Glennon:The next Fed meeting ends right after the election.
Jim Glennon:So we'll get into all that and we'll have a.
Jim Glennon:We have a rare segment on our podcast next week.
Jim Glennon:We're gonna have a special guest come and talk with us about what we should be paying attention to as the election gets closer.
Jim Glennon:That episode drops the first day of the NBA conference next week.
Jim Glennon:So hopefully we'll see you all there.
Jim Glennon:All right, just to take a look at some of our data real quick.
Jim Glennon:I mean, Obmmi, maybe no surprise to anyone.
Jim Glennon:It's a little bit up.
Jim Glennon:We're up off the lows.
Jim Glennon:We're about 6.45 right now for 30 year conventional volume.
Jim Glennon:Still pretty strong, but certainly below the highs that we saw back in August when we had that little pop.
Jim Glennon:And we got down to almost 6%.
Jeff McCarty:On average rates past two and a half, three weeks, we've been pretty stable in terms of rates after we bounced off the lows.
Jeff McCarty:So again, unfortunately, it wasn't a continued downward trend in rates, but we are stable at this point in our range.
Jim Glennon:Yeah, it's had an effect on rate term refis, especially where rates and refis are currently down about 50% month over month, which is obviously a huge, huge number.
Jim Glennon:All right, let's go over and see what Alex has for us.
Jim Glennon:Alex, there's a lot to talk about today.
Jim Glennon:Want to talk a little bit about, you know, as usual, what's going on with the economy, what's going on with rates of, but also want to start some election conversation because that's obviously coming up here in the next couple of weeks.
Jim Glennon:Welcome, Alex.
Alex Hebner:Thanks for having me.
Alex Hebner:Good morning.
Alex Hebner:Yeah, as you said last week, economic updates, it was a relatively quiet week.
Alex Hebner:Usually week three of the month is pretty quiet from a general economy outlook.
Alex Hebner:But we did get housing starts and housing permits.
Alex Hebner:Both came in right around expectations.
Alex Hebner:Housing starts nailed the expectation, 1.35 million and permits missed by 20,000, which in the grand scheme of things is completely negligible.
Alex Hebner:And next week we will get home sales data in addition to more Fed speakers.
Alex Hebner:But for right now, it's really pretty quiet in the lead up to the election and the early November Federal Reserve meeting.
Jeff McCarty:Housing starts or housing supply in general, though, feels like kind of the next big focus.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:We've gotten through kind of the first Fed rate cut.
Jeff McCarty:You know, we'll be watching closely what happens, but it feels like after we got through that first cut, the conversation around that is dying down a little bit.
Jeff McCarty:So in our industry, it feels like people are keeping a really close eye on housing supply at this point.
Alex Hebner:Yeah, I think supply is something that if you're in the industry, you should always be keeping.
Alex Hebner:In the back of mind, rates are the hot button issue and they go up and down.
Alex Hebner:But for years now, since the great financial crisis, we've had a, a housing shortage in this country.
Alex Hebner:And to resolve that would completely change the landscape of the mortgage industry.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:Just more houses for people to buy and more affordable houses for people to buy.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:That's also an issue right now where home builders tend to skew a little bit more towards those high end, high margin houses versus lesser expensive houses that could serve underserved communities.
Alex Hebner:Right.
Alex Hebner:It depends on who you ask.
Alex Hebner:But Moody's, for example, they say that in the economy in general, there's about 3 million unit shortage.
Alex Hebner:And like you said, builders, they prefer to build those higher margin homes which end up on the higher end of the income spectrum.
Alex Hebner:So it's harder for those that are looking to be a first time home buyer or maybe are lower income looking to get into home ownership.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:So no doubt going to be a huge subject, you know, over the next couple weeks as we decide on the election.
Jim Glennon:And then whoever, you know, the new administration, it's going to be something they're going to have to address or something they're going to have to tackle or have an answer, some kind of answer for.
Alex Hebner:Absolutely.
Alex Hebner:I definitely classified as a bipartisan issue.
Alex Hebner:It's definitely something that both parties can say there's an issue here and we need to address it.
Jeff McCarty:So since it's a bipartisan issue, I'm sure there'll be, you know, great civil discussion between the two different parties on the topic.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Alex Hebner:Of course.
Alex Hebner:Of course.
Alex Hebner:No, it's kind of, we're kind of lucky if we even hear about it, even though it's something that I think regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, it's likely affecting you, especially if you're young and looking to buy for the first time.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah.
Jeff McCarty:So let's get into some of the platform of the two different candidates.
Jeff McCarty:You want to go through what we're seeing so far, what they've described as their platforms.
Alex Hebner:Yeah, definitely.
Alex Hebner:I think both are looking to, like I said, just to expand the housing supply.
Alex Hebner:I think the Republicans are more looking to open up land for home building, whereas the Democrats look to incentivize it via tax incentives.
Alex Hebner:So I guess I'll just start with the Democrats.
Alex Hebner:Their proposal, Kamala Harris's proposal, there's really two big tax incentive plans.
Alex Hebner:One, low income housing tax credit.
Alex Hebner:That one is more focused on renters, actually, than homeowners.
Alex Hebner:That one is just looking to address the number of people who are paying 30% or more of their income towards rental housing.
Alex Hebner: Since: Alex Hebner:So the cost of just renting a home or renting an apartment, whatever it may be, is weighing more and more heavily on household finances for renters.
Alex Hebner:And then there's a kind of, it's much like the Community Reinvestment act in that it, this tax incentive, the second tax incentive plan is targeted at homeowners, specifically those in areas that need, like, refurbishment or a little bit more downtrodden.
Alex Hebner:These are tax credits for current homeowners to help them rebuild their home and not get priced out of an area by fast money.
Alex Hebner:Wall street, those buying up houses, looking to use them as rental properties.
Alex Hebner:And then on top of that, there's also a proposal for about $40 billion to put into a number of different proposals.
Alex Hebner:This money could be used for anything from a lot of overlap with that second tax credit I talked about, with just community refurbishment and keeping home values high, keeping equity for owners high, but also investment into just more modern technologies for home building just to bring down, hopefully, the cost of building.
Jim Glennon:So all of these involve a much larger tax credit or much larger grant than we've seen in the past, is that right?
Alex Hebner:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alex Hebner:The Harris proposals really focus on tax credits.
Jim Glennon:And is that up to $25,000 a borrower?
Alex Hebner:Yeah.
Alex Hebner:Additionally, there is a $25,000 proposal for first time homebuyers.
Alex Hebner:You would get a tax credit if you were to be a first time homebuyer of $25,000, which really helps you put equity into that home.
Jim Glennon:What about some tax relief for the builders?
Jim Glennon:Getting back to the supply side?
Alex Hebner:Yeah.
Alex Hebner:The second tax proposal plan that I talked about, the neighborhood homes tax credit in there, there's built in tax credits for builders.
Jim Glennon:Oh, very good.
Jeff McCarty:All right, so what are we seeing on the other side of the aisle?
Alex Hebner:Yeah, other side of the aisle.
Alex Hebner:Trump's proposals, those kind of a classic small government approach.
Alex Hebner:There's definitely proposals out there for cutting into HUD, but to address the supply issues, theirs is much more focused on opening up land for development.
Alex Hebner:His biggest proposal is opening up federal lands and making those lands ultra cheap to build on with tax incentives for builders.
Alex Hebner:So they're much more focused on just opening up land with adjacent tax proposals.
Alex Hebner:By and large, the proposals are very similar, until you get into the nitty gritty details.
Jim Glennon:So now, knowing what some of these proposals are, what would it actually look like if Trump is in the White House or Harris is in the White House?
Jim Glennon:What's the likelihood of these plans actually going through?
Alex Hebner:I think looking at the three branches and how you got to get things aligned to get proposals passed, I think if Trump were to win the election, he would have a greater chance of getting his proposals implemented.
Alex Hebner:Right now, the House and Senate races are leaning ever so slightly republican, and currently the Congress is republican dominated, so I think he would have a greater chance of getting his proposals passed.
Alex Hebner:Harris, I think, would have a tougher time with Congress and the judicial branch a little bit more aligned against her, with the Supreme Court being majority republican, conservative leaning right now.
Alex Hebner:And again, just looking at the polls as of today, looking like the House and Senate races are leaning republican.
Jeff McCarty:Okay.
Jim Glennon:Very good.
Jim Glennon:Well, a lot to keep our eyeballs on.
Jim Glennon:A little plug for next week's podcast.
Jim Glennon:We're gonna have a special guest on to talk even more about what we can expect to focus on over the next couple weeks before the election.
Jim Glennon:Thanks a lot, Alex.
Alex Hebner:Perfect.
Alex Hebner:Thank you, guys.
Jeff McCarty:Thanks, Alex.
Jim Glennon:Okay, so somewhat related to, you know, to the election and some of the talk about housing policy, last week, we talked about market forces for specified pools, how that affects pricing and how that affects the complication of loan products that are out there.
Jim Glennon:So today, as promised, we're going to do segment two, which is we're going to talk about some ways that policy impacts pricing and the amount of products that are out there for our borrowers.
Jim Glennon:So I think, Jeff, maybe first we give a little bit of a brief history of some of those regulators and how they are responsible for encouraging homeownership and underserved borrowers.
Jeff McCarty: y since the housing crisis of: Jeff McCarty:When Fannie and Freddie were put into conservatorship.
Jeff McCarty:And so they, you know, they're sort of in an interesting spot where they almost have dual mandates themselves, much like the fed right there.
Jeff McCarty:They certainly are trying to be profitable as their own entities right there.
Jeff McCarty:You know, they have shareholders that they technically answer to.
Jeff McCarty:They're trying to maximize profits.
Jeff McCarty:But at the same time, they are in conservatorship under the FHFA.
Jeff McCarty:And the FHFA as a government entity, they have their own goals.
Jeff McCarty:They're trying to encourage homeownership for, whether it's first time home buyers or, you know, low income borrowers.
Jim Glennon:Underserved communities.
Jeff McCarty:Underserved communities.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:So the FHFA is responsible for ensuring that Fannie and Freddie operate in a safe and sound manner.
Jeff McCarty:I read that one off a script.
Jeff McCarty:Want to get that right.
Jeff McCarty:But again, you know, Fannie and Freddie trying to maintain their own set of profitability.
Jeff McCarty:So, you know, we're going to get into a little bit about how that affects policy and, and pricing for borrowers and for these loans as they're sold in the secondary market, Mike.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:And I think another thing to remind folks about, and this might be even more familiar and goes back even before the financial crisis, but also has a big effect on pricing.
Jim Glennon:That's CRA.
Jim Glennon:So the Community Reinvestment act, been out there for a long time, but also has an effect, especially if you deal with large banks.
Jim Glennon:They have some obligations in certain areas of the country where they operate, where they need to provide enhanced pricing, especially for lip and Vlip borrowers, which is basically low income.
Jeff McCarty:The CRA, the Community Reinvestment act is a great thing to bring up because it has been around there a long time, and it's just a good example of how difficult these types of programs or requirements, often coming from the government, are.
Jeff McCarty:Difficult to really, truly incentivize all the way down to the borrower.
Jeff McCarty:So the Community Reinvestment act is targeting underserved markets, but how do you identify those?
Jeff McCarty:At the time a loan officer is trying to educate and get pricing to a borrower, versus when these incentives are actually applied, when the loan is actually sold on the secondary market, or when these loan, a closed loan, is actually exchanging hands.
Jeff McCarty:It's often super difficult to do.
Jeff McCarty:And so we see that with some of these other newer programs that have been coming out as well that have had various degrees of success in encouraging this type of production.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:Much like the specified payups we talked about last week.
Jim Glennon:Just sometimes you find yourself chasing some of the appetites for these products and some of these positive pricing adjustments between the time you originate the loan and the time you actually lock the loan with the borrower and then the time you close it.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah.
Jeff McCarty:So let's get into a little bit of the history.
Jeff McCarty:I think it's pretty interesting to go back over the past, even just few years, and think about some of the things that the FHFA and Fannie and Freddie have implemented, or in some cases tried to implement it and even walk back.
Jeff McCarty:There's things like people may even forget now, there was a short lived DTI adjustment.
Jeff McCarty:I think it was a hit that was in there for a while.
Jeff McCarty:I think that one was pretty difficult to actually implement.
Jeff McCarty:People had some problems with that, right?
Jim Glennon:Yeah, it was for high DTI, which, first of all, was kind of backwards, right?
Jim Glennon:It was making interest rates higher for borrowers with high DTI.
Jim Glennon:But it was also much like it's difficult on a CRA loan, it is difficult to correctly estimate a borrower's full income at the time that you're locking that loan before it ever gets underwritten.
Jim Glennon:So it was difficult to establish whether or not that hit should be included in the borrower's lock or not.
Jeff McCarty:Kevin, I think that'll be a theme with some of the.
Jeff McCarty:Any of these income based adjustments.
Jeff McCarty:That's a theme, right?
Kevin Foley:Yeah, I think that's one of the challenges when you're actually looking to implement one of these income based adjustments is income is something that, you know, in order to really take advantage of that or protect yourself, take advantage of an incentive or protect yourself from a penalty is you really got to get that income dialed in upfront.
Kevin Foley:And if you're not doing that, then that's going to create more tricky situations down the road.
Kevin Foley:So from a lender's perspective, if you're trying to take advantage of some of these more granular pricing incentives or protect yourself from the hits, you really have to make sure that your policies are dialed in, that you're educating originators on, you know, what you need to do to verify income upfront, how accurate can you make it?
Kevin Foley:And then make those decisions around.
Kevin Foley:When you provide that incentive, you know, down to the borrower level, you're going to want to make sure that your policies are dialed in first, that you've got a level of confidence before you start unleashing those incentives to make sure that you're protecting yourself and ultimately the borrowers in the long run.
Jeff McCarty:So a few more examples out there of things like this.
Jeff McCarty:The agencies have these concepts called low income purchases and very low income purchases.
Jeff McCarty:So lip and vlip for short acronyms.
Jeff McCarty:And they have these targets, again, ultimately coming down from the FHFA about what percentage of loans should hit these thresholds for low income and very low income.
Jeff McCarty:I think low income is defined as less than 80% of the area median income, with the borrowers less than 80% of the area median income, and then very low income, I think is 50%.
Jeff McCarty:Does that sound right?
Jim Glennon:Sounds right, yeah.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah.
Jeff McCarty:And so, you know, there are, you know, they have targets for the percentage of production that, that hits each of these.
Jeff McCarty:You know, it's something the Fannie and Freddie watch closely with their sellers.
Jeff McCarty:But how do you, as a seller, you know, as an originator, how do you encourage that type of production?
Jeff McCarty:It's super difficult.
Kevin Foley:Yeah.
Kevin Foley:And there's, there's definitely an educational aspect to the originators as well.
Kevin Foley:You know, if you're doing business in a certain MSA or, you know, across multiple msas, having an understanding of where those areas are, that, you know, have that incentive available to you.
Kevin Foley:That's a very important thing to make sure that you're educated on because to what you're saying, Jeff, not only is there an incentive to originators and to borrowers in a lot of cases, but it's very important in terms of the lender's overall performance.
Kevin Foley:That's one thing that if you're an originator and you're not doing that today, definitely want to carve out some time to make sure that you understand where those opportunity areas are in your msas.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah.
Jeff McCarty:And so Fannie and Freddie will come to sellers and say, okay, we want to see a certain amount of your production hitting these criteria.
Jeff McCarty:And then the seller kind of comes back and says, all right, well, how do you expect me to do that, right.
Jeff McCarty:Over the past couple of years, I'm just originating any loan I can originate.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:I'm just trying to survive.
Jeff McCarty:I can't be that targeted.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:If my numbers are low, it's not for a lack of effort.
Jim Glennon:We're trying to originate every single loan that's out there in this market.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:So I think where there ends up being more success is when there is kind of specific pricing hits or specific incentives that help with these types of things.
Jeff McCarty:So one of the things we saw that maybe indirectly helped with this is these huge hits that were huge, maybe too sharp.
Jeff McCarty:Some larger adjustments for non owner occupied loans and second home loans.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:Some bigger loan level price adjustments that were implemented over the past couple of years to decrease the incentive to originate those.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jeff McCarty:That's one way to do it.
Jeff McCarty:And then we've had, you know, some other adjustments or some other programs, programs come into play to incentivize the other types of loans.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:So, you know, home ready and home possible.
Jeff McCarty:We've seen a couple of iterations over the past few years of incentivizing those loans, whether it's LLPA waivers or more recently we've had this $2,500 credit directly to borrowers.
Kevin Foley:Yeah.
Kevin Foley:And I think if, I'm thinking like an originator right now with all the different things that we're talking about, both in terms of product availability or different spec buckets from last week, the different incentives, pricing incentives related to policy or penalties related to policy.
Kevin Foley:The biggest, I think the most important thing that originators can do is to educate themselves on what is the lay of the land for the product offering and the pricing incentives at your lender.
Kevin Foley:And I think that's totally an appropriate thing to talk to your secondary group about if you're having trouble sort of sifting through where are these incentives or what product mix will help me determine the best fit for a borrower.
Kevin Foley:You know, a totally inappropriate thing to ask for some education from secondary because they're the ones who are crunching these numbers and helping evaluate, passing these incentives on to the borrower.
Kevin Foley:And they're in a good position to be able to help educate you and help you educate yourself on how to provide the best fit for your borrower.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah, I seen a couple different comments.
Jeff McCarty:In various places, we don't necessarily need more programs or more ways to serve these markets.
Jeff McCarty:I think it is about education.
Jeff McCarty:Right.
Jeff McCarty:You know, making sure loan officers, originators, and then ultimately borrowers are aware of all the programs that are available to them.
Kevin Foley:Absolutely right.
Jim Glennon:And then we leave it up to the regulators and the lawmakers to decide if there are new programs that can be introduced.
Jeff McCarty:One last program worth mentioning that actually kind of overlaps with both policy and market based incentives that's come out recently is mission score products.
Jeff McCarty:So both Fannie and Freddie are offering these mission score products.
Jeff McCarty:And these mission score products are interesting.
Jeff McCarty:They look at a variety of criteria to actually score individual loans.
Jeff McCarty:You get a score of zero to three based on, if you hit different types of, it looks at an income dimension, a borrower dimension and a property dimension to exactly what it says, score the loan to figure out if it's serving kind of the right type of borrower property and area.
Jeff McCarty:So it's pretty interesting in that there actually is a market demand for these products.
Jeff McCarty:There is a, as we talked about last week, there's a prepayment story for these loans.
Jeff McCarty:These loans actually do prepay slower than your average loan, but at the same time, it is serving these underserved markets.
Jeff McCarty:It has a nice overlap of everything we've been talking about the past couple of years.
Jim Glennon:Some people will pay up for a bond just because of the fact that it serves underserved communities and markets, right?
Jeff McCarty:Yeah, exactly.
Jeff McCarty:And so, you know, some of the big criteria here, you know, a first time home buyer is one of the big things they look at for these mission scores.
Jeff McCarty:Low income borrowers, where are they moving from and where are they moving to?
Jeff McCarty:You know, a lot of things get factored into this mission score, but it seems to be having pretty good success so far.
Jeff McCarty:There is a decent payup, but there's some overlap, too, there in terms of payups.
Jeff McCarty:Right, jim?
Jim Glennon:Yeah.
Jim Glennon:Not to make it more complicated, you have a pay up for mission score loan, but also by the nature of some of these criteria, you tend to have mission score loans that are smaller loans.
Jim Glennon:So these low balance payups that we've talked about and that people are generally aware of, those low loan balance payups could be higher than the mission score Payup.
Jim Glennon:Therefore, you want to shift that borrow into a low loan balance product.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Kevin Foley:I mean, that's all pretty complicated, but what do we think moving forward in the next few years, guys?
Kevin Foley:We think this is getting any simpler?
Jim Glennon:Probably not.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah, I think just like we talked about last week, it's probably going to get even more granular.
Jeff McCarty:I think.
Jeff McCarty:Certainly technology allows for it to get more granular, but it's definitely, you know, not, not always straightforward, not always easy to implement.
Jeff McCarty:But I think we're getting better and better at it.
Jeff McCarty:But yeah, we get, we're only going to get more granular.
Jeff McCarty:I don't think we're going to streamline any of these any more than we have.
Kevin Foley:Yeah.
Jim Glennon:Right.
Jim Glennon:Our processes and our technology just need to keep getting better and better at identifying these opportunities upfront and fitting the borrower into the exact right piece of granularity.
Kevin Foley:Yeah, it's important because it is a technology conversation, but it's also important to not forget the human aspect as well.
Kevin Foley:Again, pound the table.
Kevin Foley:If you're an originator out there or a secondary group, it's one thing to make sure you have the technology that can help power these incentives and these new product offerings, but it's a whole separate thing to make sure that you're going to be able to take advantage of it with your internal procedures, with your education for originators, you know, with your outreach to borrowers.
Kevin Foley:So.
Kevin Foley:Brave new world out there.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah.
Jeff McCarty:Well said.
Jim Glennon:Absolutely.
Jim Glennon:All right, great session, guys.
Jim Glennon:Thank you, Kevin.
Jim Glennon:Yeah, thanks, Jeff.
Jim Glennon:Yep.
Jeff McCarty:Thanks, Kevin.
Jim Glennon:All right, Jeff, let's close this thing out.
Jim Glennon:Great episode.
Jim Glennon:Thanks again, guys.
Jeff McCarty:I feel like we made, I feel like we made the discussion around housing policy pretty interesting.
Jeff McCarty:About as interesting it could get.
Jeff McCarty:It obviously affects all of us considerably, so.
Jim Glennon:Absolutely.
Jim Glennon:And we'll keep that going next week as we get into more election discussion with our special guest.
Jim Glennon:And we'll be looking forward as well to the unemployment numbers that are coming out and the conclusion of the Fed meeting, which is that day after the election.
Jim Glennon:All right, I'd also like to plug our optimal blue summit, which is our client conference coming up February 3 and fifth of next year.
Jim Glennon:That'll be in San Diego, California.
Jim Glennon:This is going to be a full user conference, so all the optimal blue products and people will be represented there.
Jim Glennon:We'll have a ton of sessions built for functions across the capital markets ecosystem.
Jim Glennon:So we'll have tracks that include AI automation, growing profitability, and even some origination to trading sessions.
Jim Glennon:And we'll have demos of our newest technology.
Jeff McCarty:Yeah.
Jeff McCarty:Not just focus on our products, you know, a lot of things about what's going on in the industry, much like we talk about on this podcast.
Jeff McCarty:So it's not just going to be focused on OB products, but you know, what's going on within your business across all your different tools.
Jim Glennon:So yeah, for more information, feel free to reach out to us, or you can also visit Summit dot optimalblue.com.
Jim Glennon:so thank you, everybody.
Jim Glennon:Thanks, Jeff.
Jim Glennon:Thanks Alex.
Jim Glennon:Thanks Kevin.
Jim Glennon:Well, that's it for today.
Jim Glennon:Join us next week for another episode of Optimal Insights, where we'll continue to provide you with the latest market analysis and insights to help you stay ahead.
Jim Glennon:Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more updates and to access our latest video episodes.
Jim Glennon:You can also find each episode on all major podcast platforms.
Jim Glennon:Thanks again for tuning in to optimal insights.
