Ops Efficiency, Non-QM, AI Governance Tools; M&A Strategy; Election Results and Lending; FEMA Changes

All of you out there wishing there were fewer people on the roads or in line at the post office, take heart. Lenders with a long time horizon, not so much. Apparently, even paradise is having trouble keeping its population up: The Census Bureau released updated projections through 2100 for 25 countries and U.S. territories, revealing that population declines in American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands are already underway and expected to continue through the century, alongside updated data for more than 16,600 regions worldwide. That doesn’t bode so well for home sellers or lenders, frankly. In other news impacting lenders and servicers, Bloomberg reports that FEMA stopped publishing key data on disaster aid. Not only that, but FEMA’s maps (some 20+ years old) undercount the U.S. flooding risk by about 6 million homes, many in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, big lending areas. Are these good things for our nation? (More below.) (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are presented by Truework, a Checkr company, the one verification solution to replace in-house waterfalls. Verify any borrower with a VOIEA solution that automates the entire process to quickly deliver the most accurate and complete reports with broad GSE coverage. Today’s has an interview with TXMBA’s Scott Norman on housing affordability as a bipartisan priority following the midterm elections, the Texas MBA’s continued advocacy and education efforts on behalf of the mortgage industry, and its upcoming November 16 Texas Housing Summit in Austin, bringing together leaders across mortgage lending, homebuilding, banking, and title services.)