
Welcome to The S-Curve
Now you will be able to receive the latest announcements, product updates, and our insights on the mortgage market in real time.
The name of the blog, the S-Curve, is a reflection of our logo and the central feature of our prepayment model. S-curves are seen in nature in many phenomenon, from population growth to prepayment and default models. Our first S-curve, in the early 1990s, used the arctangent function, then piece-wise linear functions, and evolved over time to be more complex and vary by FICO, loan size and LTV. This evolution encapsulates both the timeless nature of fundamental relationships and constant innovation to describe them better over time.
We hope you find the information useful and we look forward to your feedback.
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Policy Perspectives - Housing Market Dynamics and Mortgage RiskThoughts
Our latest Policy Perspective written by Richard Cooperstein offers an analysis of the U.S. housing and mortgage finance markets, focusing on key trends and forward-looking risks. While housing markets are not fully efficient, they do respond to economic imbalances which create opportunities and vulnerabilities. This article explores how demographic shifts, credit access, interest rates, and climate risks shape both housing demand and supply.
Key findings include:
- Weak demand fundamentals, especially among new homeowners
- Easing supply shortages and slowing price growth
- Elevated risk of broader housing price declines amid rising recession concerns
- Notable exposure of higher-coupon mortgages and servicing rights to interest rate and credit risks
Cooperstein also assess the resilience of mortgage-related assets under current and projected conditions.
Click here to read now!
The S-Curve Archives
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Thoughts
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.
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Thoughts
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.
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Thoughts
In this short blog post I discuss some developments taking place in the flood insurance landscape in the US and look ahead at a few potential directions things could go. I suggest that universal catastrophic flood insurance coverage with a continuation of the introduction of risk-based pricing would be a significant improvement.
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Thoughts
Introduction
The Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) entered conservatorship in September 2008. One could view the succeeding thirteen years as a journey back to financial stability with a refined operating model that looks more like a financial utility than a hedge fund. This business model is more compatible with a fair lending mission for a standard-setter that maintains secondary markets under an effective regulator. The GSEs remain the largest part of the housing finance backbone and a resilient funding source during economic stress.
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Thoughts
Around 75% of white American families were homeowners in the first quarter of 2020, according to data from the United States Census Bureau. However, only 44% of Black American families owned their homes at the same time.
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Thoughts
According to a report by the Research Institute for Housing America, climate change risk is rapidly increasing in the housing industry and will continue to demand more attention and regulation in the near future.
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Thoughts
Mortgage market participants are keenly aware that the Federal Reserve has been scaling back its UST and MBS purchases and factoring the outcomes of its actions on stakeholders across markets.
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Thoughts
The growing prevalence of artificial intelligence in the mortgage industry is shining a new light on the human biases that have pervaded the industry since its inception. AI is meant to bring fairness and objectivity to mortgage decisions, but it can’t perform fairly if it was built on an unfair system.
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Products
The LDM v3.0.2 library adds AutoLDM to the v3.0.1 library.
Key benefits include:
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EventsWe at Andrew Davidson & Co., Inc. (AD&Co) are once again thrilled to celebrate Pride Month, especially the contributions of LGBTQ professionals in the field of finance including affordable housing policy and the GSEs. This year, in addition to celebrating, we are also paying increased attention to the challenges that LGBTQ individuals face, particularly around issues of housing. Our pride in our LGBTQ staff and community sits alongside our concern about discriminatory lending practices, including in mortgages. As of February 2021, for the first time, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) Americans will be protected from housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.