The Institutional Risk Analyst

The Citi decision to exit mortgage servicing perhaps made sense in 2017, but today not so much.

Given the demand for safe assets, the true risk free rate today is probably less than zero. Ponder that Chairman Powell

Sooner or later someone has to eat those forgone cash flow losses....

Mortgage Finance: Crime & Punishment: When you have a regulator as brutal and arbitrary as the CFPB, an assortment of fixers are advisable. But no more. With the impending lobotomy of the CFPB now at hand, the street value of former CFPB regulators has fallen to a discount, says one well-placed Washington lawyer.

In fact, since WWII home prices in the US have gone up four times the official inflation rate. “Houses weren't always this expensive,” notes CNBC. “In 1940, the median home value in the U.S. was just $2,938. In 1980, it was $47,200, and by 2000, it had risen to $119,600. Even adjusted for inflation, the median home price in 1940 would only have been $30,600 in 2000 dollars, according to data from the U.S. Census.”