Verification Letter, AI Compliance, Retention, Decisioning Tools; Fix-and-Flip Trends

Pennymac has released the latest edition of its Pennymac Policy Pulse, a newsletter tracking key federal policy developments shaping the housing market and broader U.S. economy. When national or state-level organizations engage in advocacy, they don’t visit the NAR or home builders or large title companies. They visit state legislators, Congress, or federal regulators. It has become impossible to separate politics from residential lending. Lenders are confronted with regulators, people moving states due to politics, expensive property taxes from local governments, state-specific lender and servicer restrictions, policies and procedures and document sets that come from Agencies under government conservatorship, and lastly interest rates that are higher than they should be due to due to oil price-induced inflation. If you can be successful in this business by ignoring all of that, congratulations. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Equifax. With Equifax's suite of mortgage solutions, mortgage lenders can use trusted, independently verified consumer and financial data and analytics to reduce manual processes, accelerate loan decisions, improve accuracy, manage risk, and enhance the borrower experience from initial application through ongoing loan servicing. Today’s has an interview with Class Valuation’s Mark Walser on UAD 3.6: stages of panic versus planning, and what lenders can expect in the fall.)

Broker and Correspondent Loan Products

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Broker and Lender Software and Services

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Most mortgage AI tools automate part of the process… and leave your team to catch what gets missed. That doesn’t reduce risk, it just shifts it. JazzX AI takes a different approach, reasoning across the full loan lifecycle and validating data across documents to produce findings that are complete, explainable, and audit-ready. Every output is tied to a specific guideline, document, and data field, so your team can independently verify every decision. That’s the difference between automation that looks good upfront and automation that stands up under scrutiny. Request a demo to see how JazzX automates audit-ready decisions.

Many future closings come from people a loan officer already knows. Past borrowers. Referral partners. Personal networks. Those relationships matter. Staying connected to them consistently is often a real challenge. Good intentions alone don't create consistency. Without a solution, that challenge often results in missed opportunities. MortgageHalo was built with that in mind. Built to make professional lives better and easier, MortgageHalo solves this challenge through ongoing done-for-you communications that help loan officers stay connected. The system captures and delivers opportunities from relationships already earned without creating more work. It is designed to drive repeat, referral, and recapture business. To learn more, activate an account online, or schedule a personalized demo, visit here.

If you ask AI how to make a peanut butter sandwich, you'll get 17 paragraphs and three disclaimers. If you're looking for more practical guidance, the on-demand recording of The Hitchhiker's Guide to AI in Mortgage Lending is now available. LenderLogix CEO Patrick O'Brien breaks down where AI is actually creating value inside mortgage workflows, how lenders are using it today, and how to separate useful technology from clever marketing. Watch the recording here!

Mortgage compliance teams don't have an information problem. They have a time problem. Every day, compliance professionals spend hours searching regulations, reviewing guidance, validating interpretations, and answering questions from across the organization. The challenge isn't finding information. It's finding the right answer quickly and confidently. VAL was built for exactly that purpose. Powered by curated mortgage compliance content and designed specifically for lenders and servicers, VAL delivers source-backed answers with citations in seconds. Whether the question involves RESPA, servicing, Fair Lending, state regulations, or operational compliance, teams can move faster without sacrificing accuracy. The first 100 users who start a free 7-day trial will secure introductory pricing of $200 per month. After that, pricing increases. Start your FREE 7-Day Trial today.

Less back-and-forth. More first-time-right verifications. Truework replaces manual verification waterfalls with a single automated platform, so underwriters, LOs, and ops can cut down the document chasing, conflicting numbers, and last-minute corrections. Lenders see up to 50% cost savings on verifications, with faster turn times, higher accuracy, and stronger R&W relief. Trusted by 4 of the top 5 lenders in the U.S., Truework gives your team verification results they can rely on. Learn more.

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Today at 1PM ET is Now Next Later, sponsored by Depth. Jeremy Potter takes the latest in technology news and applies it to lenders and vendors. Today features TJ Harrington of Stewart Title.

The Chrisman Marketplace is a centralized hub for vendors and service providers across the industry to be viewed by lenders in a very cost-effective manner. We’re adding new providers daily, so check back often to see what’s new. To reserve your place or learn more, contact us at info@chrismancommentary.com.

Fix-and-Flip Lending… Catch the Wave?

ATTOM reported its Q1 2026 U.S. Home Flipping Report indicating stronger fix-and-flip transaction activity and returns: ATTOM announcement. Megan Castleton and Sean Faries, both industry influencers with deep insight into residential transition loans and fix-and-flip lending, weighed in with their thoughts.

Megan Castleton, Chief Credit Officer of Constructive Capital, thought, “The lesson for brokers is simple: stop selling ‘flip activity’ and start selling ‘flip viability.’ In this market, the difference between a fundable opportunity and a bad trade can be just a few points of margin.

“Agents are in a strong position to add value because today’s flip market is less about buying cheap and more about buying right. The homes with the best returns are not necessarily the lowest-priced properties… they’re the ones with the clearest path to resale. The market is rewarding discipline again. In prior cycles, broad appreciation could cover operational mistakes. In today’s environment, leadership teams need sharp buy-boxes, tighter credit standards, and local market intelligence to preserve returns.

“As timelines lengthen and FHA-backed exits decline, agents who can help investors align renovation scope with end-buyer demand will be more valuable than ever. Execution now matters just as much as acquisition. The most important strategic takeaway is that profitability is fragmenting by metro, price point, and buyer profile. That creates a real opportunity for lenders, brokers, and investors who rely on data-driven market selection rather than generalized national assumptions.

Sean Faries, CEO of Land Gorilla, opined, “The headline here is a gross margin, not a profit. It's the spread between what an investor paid and what they sold for, before rehab, financing, carrying costs, and the cost to sell. ATTOM is upfront that those expenses can run 20 to 33 percent of a home's after-repair value, enough to turn a 25 percent gross return into a thin or even negative net one. I'd be cautious reading this as flippers suddenly making more money. What the data really shows is a more selective market, where the deals that don't pencil are getting screened out and the operators still active are buying better. That's discipline, not a rebound.

“There's a part of this story that gets missed. The homes where investors see the best returns sit in the lower and middle price tiers, and those are very often homes a traditional buyer cannot finance. An FHA or VA loan will not close on a property with active health and safety problems or systems that don't meet habitability standards. So, before an investor touches it, that home is effectively out of reach for an owner-occupant. Fix-and-flip investors are the ones absorbing that risk, making the repairs, and putting a safe, financeable home back into inventory, extending its useful life. This report shows about one in ten flipped homes sold to an FHA buyer. That's a first-time or lower-income household with a home they could actually buy. In a market this short on attainable housing, that's a real contribution, not just a trade.

“What stands out to me is how thin the cushion between gross and net has become. When typical gross profit is around $66,000 and rehab plus carrying costs can consume most of it, there's almost no room for a blown budget or a hold that runs long, and these are now averaging 165 days. For the lenders and investors financing this work, that raises the value of disciplined renovation budgeting, draw oversight, and timeline control. In a market this tight, the quality of your project and risk oversight is what separates a profitable deal from a loss. That's the problem we built X-Ray to solve.”

Capital Markets

If you’d like a description of some of the basics impacting mortgage rates these days, here is a piece from sales & trading vet Dave Gottfried.

Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan, chair of Federal Reserve under 4 U.S. presidents from 1987-2006, died at age 100. Mr. Greenspan famously said that he never received a direct request from a president to cut rates.

The consensus out there is that the economy remains solid, inflation is still too high, and restoring price stability is our central bank’s primary objective under new Chair Warsh. Policymakers last week raised their inflation forecasts, lowered unemployment expectations, and revealed a more hawkish outlook. Roughly half the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) favored higher rates and Warsh notably declined to submit a dot-plot forecast, fueling speculation that the Fed may move away from that form of forward guidance.

The fixed-income markets (e.g., bonds) interpreted the meeting as a hawkish shift, pushing short-term Treasury yields sharply higher and increasing expectations that the Fed’s next move is more likely to be a rate hike than a cut, while Warsh signaled broader institutional changes through the creation of task forces focused on communications, data, inflation, productivity, and jobs. For now, the Fed remains firmly on hold, but Warsh appears focused on laying the intellectual groundwork for a more market-oriented and less prescriptive approach to policy making, potentially marking a meaningful shift in the Fed’s long-term operating philosophy rather than its near-term rate outlook.

The higher probability of additional rate hikes has contributed to tighter financial conditions and growing stress across credit markets. Equity indexes remain near record highs and credit spreads have compressed back toward cycle lows, some investors are beginning to question whether richly valued AI-related stocks can continue to outperform as liquidity fades and borrowing costs remain restrictive. Investors remain focused not only on current oil prices but also on the risk that energy markets could tighten materially again if geopolitical tensions reemerge, helping keep Treasury yields contained despite what many would describe as improving geopolitical conditions last week. Concerns are growing that tighter credit conditions, rising distressed debt activity, and slowing liquidity could eventually challenge the resilience of both risk assets and private credit markets.

Oil price and Iranian war news has dominated the headlines, and overshadowed economic news in terms of moving rates. But this week’s economic calendar features the latest personal income and spending data, which is expected to show a nominal 0.6 percent increase in personal spending. (That gain is likely due to rising prices rather than an actual uptick in consumer demand.) The PCE deflator, a key metric for measuring price increases, is forecast to rise 0.5 percent for the month, pushing the annual inflation rate over 4 percent.

Behind these higher spending numbers, consumer fundamentals are actually weakening because real disposable income has fallen. The savings rate is hovering near historic lows as households dip into reserves to keep up with rising prices. While overall spending should advance in the second quarter, it will likely do so at an unimpressive pace. It remains to be seen how much longer consumers can sustain this momentum when inflation has outpaced the forecast 0.4 percent increase in personal income.

Highlights from the data-front this week include S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing and Services PMIs, the (obviously backward-looking) third estimate of Q1 GDP, personal income and spending, PCE and core PCE, May Durable Goods Orders, retail and wholesale inventories, and final June University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment. Treasury will conduct its quarterly refunding, consisting of a $69 billion 2-year Treasury note auction tomorrow, a $70 billion 5-year Treasury note auction on Wednesday, and a $44 billion 7-year Treasury note auction on Thursday. With nothing of note on today’s economic calendar, we begin the week with Agency MBS prices worse than Friday’s close by about .125, the 2-year yielding 4.22, and the 10-year yielding 4.49 after closing last holiday-shortened week on Thursday at 4.45 percent.