January is National Mentoring Month which is very appropriate since it coincides with the time when we typically set out our goals and intentions for the New Year. Organizations are embracing mentoring programs and these programs have indeed become a strategic imperative for many. There are many benefits to mentorship and it's easy enough to comprehend. The individuals involved in a mentoring relationship and the organizations that choose to sponsor a mentoring program all are likely to benefit.

Homeownership is the largest source of wealth accumulation and inter-generational wealth transfer for the working and middle class. However, the history of racial discrimination (it was actually legal to discriminate by race in housing until the Fair Housing Act of 1968), suggests that we have a continuing responsibility to ensure fair access to housing and housing finance. 

Dear Friends,

As Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co) reaches its 30-year milestone, I reflect on two seemingly contradictory ideas:  Firms need experience to guide clients through difficult times but sometimes it is necessary to discard past practices to achieve breakthroughs. 

For many people, having accessible transportation (a car, for example) is necessary. Most U.S. people live in areas without adequate public transportation and require vehicles to access jobs, healthcare, and groceries.

As interest rates rise and fewer loans with refinancing incentive remain, other factors are primed to play a larger role in determining prepayment speeds in the coming months (and perhaps years). Turnover, the rate at which people move, is the most cited of these factors.  In this blog post, we’ll consider two other potential drivers: curtailments, or partial prepayments, and mortgage payoffs that don’t involve taking out a new loan.

Summary

In 2021, Andrew Davidson & Co. Inc. (AD&Co) proposed a benchmark cohort approach to setting Ability-to-Repay (ATR) Qualified Mortgages (QM) standards. Successful benchmarks based on data are model-free and transparent, and the cohorts must perform consistently in comparison to one another and across time. Our original work used data through the early stages of the pandemic when non-performing loan percentages skyrocketed.

How Lowering Capital Costs Affects Higher-Risk Loans

Government-sponsored enterprises (or GSEs) are companies that provide guarantees and financing to originators through the mortgage secondary market. The size and resilience of the GSE secondary market maximizes diversification and liquidity which reduces financial risk and cost of capital. This benefit accrues to conforming borrowers through lower mortgage rates and resiliently available financing. 

The release of Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc.’s (AD&Co) new generation of financial engineering tools marks a shift to a new reality; when the traditional benchmark for MBS valuation, the LIBOR/ Swap yield curve, becomes unavailable. Our recent Product Release email informed our readers about the change. In short, our users can:

FHFA held a listening session for interested parties on its proposed rule on the GSE process for credit scores.  The objective is making mortgage underwriting and pricing more accurate and more fair while balancing practical implementation by firms in the mortgage ecosystem.  Along with many others, I had the opportunity to provide insights on this proposed rulemaking.

In our January 19th blog entitled, A More Equitable Lending System Will Not Be Created by Accident, we described the efforts it will take to overcome not just bias in lending today, but the systemic factors that have limited access to credit in the past and have created an unjust system.