Hedging, Non-QM, FCRA Credit Reports, PreQual, Non-Agency Product News; Capital Markets

U.S. home foreclosures are accelerating: filings rose 26 percent year-over-year in Q1 2026, to roughly 119k, the highest in six years. It’s expensive to own a home! The last time they hit this level (early 2020), government relief programs and pandemic stimulus caused them to decline. As everyone in our biz knows, the increase has been driven by soaring home insurance bills, property taxes, and homeowner association fees rather than mortgage defaults alone. Meanwhile, anyone who thinks that there is a general shortage of homes should re-think that or refine their opinion. Elliot F. Eisenberg, Ph.D., penned, “Existing housing inventory is rising and while still below pre-Covid levels, April’s reading is the best since 2020. However, sales activity is flat as a hockey puck. That combination is pushing up months-of-inventory, putting downward pressure on home prices. To wit, the latest Case-Shiller data, for the month of March, shows home prices falling 0.22 percent month-over-month and rising 0.7 percent year-over-year, less than inflation. Real home prices are declining.” (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by NFTYDoor, the white-label HELOC platform for banks, credit unions, and brokers. Close in zero days with warehouse funding. Power your home equity lending with NFTYDoor. Today’s features an interview with Pineapple's Shubha Dasgupta on the progress and process of mortgages being originated on the blockchain, and the use cases and benefits to the mortgage and bond markets.)