3.9.26 Investor Watch; Rocket's Austin Niemiec on Tip-To-Tail; Borrower Psychology

Welcome to The Chrisman Commentary, your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

In today’s episode, we go through what investors are watching as the war in Iran enters a longer phase. Plus, Robbie sits down with Rocket's Austin Niemiec for a discussion on the three-year strategic alliance with Compass aimed at expanding home listing inventory to create a significantly enhanced and affordable home buying and selling experience for American families. And we close by looking at the evolving expectations for borrowers as mortgage rates bounce around.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Floify, an industry-leading point of sale platform. Dynamic Apps 2.0 — an AI- powered enhancement lets lenders tailor application flows by loan type, including HELOC, construction, ag, non-QM and more. Borrowers see only the right questions, the right sections and are sent the right disclosures from the start. The result? Higher completion rates, less operational back-and-forth and specialty lending without the one-size-fits-all compromise. Discover more at www.floify.com — and see Dynamic Apps 2.0 in action at ICE Experience, March 15–18 in booth 713.

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Crispin Commentary, Daily Mortgage News Podcast. I'm your host, Robbie Crispin. Topics on today's episode include what investors are watching. And how oil prices will impact borrower psychology. Today's podcast is brought to you by FlowFi, an industry leading point-of-sale platform. Have you heard about their Dynamic Apps 2.0? An AI powered enhancement that lets lenders tailor application flows by loan type, including HELOC, construction, ag, non-QM, and more. Borrowers see only the right questions and the right selections and are sent the right disclosures from the start. The result? Higher completion rates, less operational back and forth, and specialty lending without the one size fits all compromise. Discover more at flowfi.com and see Dynamic Apps 2.0 in action at ICE Experience March 15th to 18th and booth 713. Here's an executive summary of what investors are watching. U.S. stocks, especially small cap stocks, are facing pressure from rising treasury yields with the Dow Jones industrial average falling 1.6% and the Russell 2000 dropping almost 2%. Investors are growing skeptical about the likelihood of multiple interest rate cuts this year as higher energy prices and inflation persists. President Donald Trump's nominee for Federal Reserve Chair, Kevin Warsh, is expected to still favor cutting interest rates even as the Iran war pushes oil prices higher and raises inflation concerns. Warsh has argued that inflation is driven primarily by fiscal policy and the money supply rather than by energy shocks, suggesting he may pursue lower rates once confirmed, despite rising crude prices. February's employment report showed the economy shed 92,000 jobs, and the preceding two months were revised lower by a combined 69,000. Which resulted in a rolling three-month average of only 6,000 jobs added per month. The unemployment rate increased slightly to 4.44%, though this movement was partially attributable to statistical revisions and population estimates and labor force size. Leading indicators, including credit card transaction data and the impact of winter weather, suggests the forthcoming February retail sales data may show minimal improvement. Both the services manufacturing ISM surveys remained in expansion territory in February, reflecting increases in new orders and production. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is an ongoing risk factor, with the impact on overall inflation uncertain, particularly as Brett Crude trades near $90 per pair. The market's initial reaction to the conflict was to delay expectations for any rate cuts until later in the year. However, the FOMC's focus will remain acutely on the strength of the labor market. Across major mortgage sectors, modest declines in rates could meaningfully expand the pool of borrowers with refinance incentives, though the impact varies by loan type and servicer. In the conventional third-year market, a month-end rate near 5.90% puts roughly $153 billion of borrowers with rates between 6.25 and 6.375% on the cusp of refinancing. With a drop to 5 and 3 quarters percent, increasing the incentive pool by about 2.9% of total unpaid principal balance, particularly benefiting services such as Rocket, Lakeview, and PennyMac. Sensitivity is greater in the FHA 30-year universe, where similar rate declines could expand refinance eligibility by about 6.5% of UPB, with Freedom, New Res, and Pennymax seeing the largest incremental gains. In the VA 30-year segment, already lower prevailing rates, I mean a five and a half percent level opens roughly $34 billion to refinancing potential, while a move toward 5.5% could unlock an additional $64 billion. Again, disproportionately benefiting servicers like Freedom and Penny Mac, while others with large portions of lower or low servicing books see more limited upside. For today's interview, I wanted to welcome to the show Rocket's Austin Nemic to talk about the three-year strategic alliance with Compass aimed at expanding home listing inventory to create a significantly enhanced and affordable home buying and selling experience for American families.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

By now, most people, I'm sure, have heard uh about about Rockets deal with Compass International Holdings. Uh for for those that might be living under a rock, Rocket and Compass uh announced a three-year strategic alliance aimed at expanding home listing inventory to create a significant enhanced and affordable home buying and selling experience for American families. This follows in a long line of deals that Rocket's been doing recently, and and there's been Rocket has has been at the forefront of consolidation in the mortgage industry, uh getting verticals and horizontals. But I'm rambling on here. I want to hear from you kind of the rationale behind the deal and uh and and just what Rocket is so excited about when it comes to this.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

We're excited about a lot of it. We're excited about the work we've done over the last three years, Robbie. I mean, if you rewind time, we for the first time ever at Rocket brought in a CEO from outside of our four walls in Varun Krishna. It was probably the best thing we've ever done. It's allowed us to really just reimagine who we are and where this world is going when it comes to home ownership. And so we really put together a strategy to create the first ever tip-to-tail AI-fueled home ownership platform. And, you know, it started with Redfin and getting into home search in a big way, then really rebuilding the way that we build technology and AI, and then partnering and coming together with Mr. Cooper to create, you know, the largest servicer in the country. And so you got top of funnel and redfin, you got an incredible origination system, and then you have the largest servicer in the country. And so the Compass uh partnership, uh, look to do a couple things. Everybody that's in this industry understands it's a tough purchase market, and it's been a tough purchase market. And the way that you fuel and spur a purchase market is to get um folks to list their house. We need more listings out there. And you know, you have the lock-in effect with interest rates, there's a lot going on, but I think we're, you know, the market's starting to turn a corner. But we really need folks to list their home. And the issue that people have is it because it's tough, they're hesitant. They don't want to list their house and have it go stale and you know, have to reduce the the price. And so Compass has done a very interesting thing to motivate sellers or potential sellers to list their house without putting it on a grand stage at first, to kind of test the market and to see what's out there with these exclusive listings. And then when they're ready to put it on the MLS with the coming soon. And so to be able to put those on the redfin platform for the whole world to see and put eyeballs for all of America to look at these exclusives or these coming soon, uh, the goal is to help more people list their homes and spur more purchase activity in a big way. And then obviously, there's other benefits to it, right? We're we're partnering with the largest network of real estate agents in America. And we are so excited to bring our broker partners into this partnership to help connect across every you know great American city out there, our broker partners with Redfin agents. We rolled out some really cool stuff to help that. Um, I could go on and on and on. I'll shut up here, Robbie, but there's a lot to love about the Compass partnership, and uh we're only getting started.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Can we talk about the structure of it? Because it's it's billed as a strategic alliance, and the three years were mentioned. You talk about just what into kind of the nitty-gritty of the deal, and then how Compass will assimilate into the current Rocket platform.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Yeah, the easiest way to think about it is we are going to put Compass's exclusive listings, and they're coming soon, on Redfin. And so we'll put way more attention and eyeballs onto those listings. Uh, we also become the digital partner, mortgage partner of Compass. And then we've created an incredible bundle together when a homeowner buys a house with Rocket or one of our Rocket Pro brokers and uses a Compass agent, they get an awesome bundle. And so those are kind of the three main elements of the partnership.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

I don't mean to beat around the bush here too much, but just what is the end game and how far is Rocket now from that?

SPEAKER_02 9:06

The end game never ends, Robbie. But our goal, our mission, our mission is to help everyone home. And I know that might, you know, you could look at that as a little bit cheesy, but it truly is. Like we want to provide a platform that can help everybody purchase or refi their house. And then our strategy, you know, you talk about the end game is to create a really a frictionless AI-fueled home ownership platform. And platform, I know it's a bit of a buzzword, but it's important because a platform is, in my opinion, a great brand. And we've done a lot with our brand over the last couple of years to really speak to America about how beautiful home ownership is. We've eliminated the jokes and the celebrities and really just hit at the core of what home ownership is. So a platform is a great brand. It's incredible technology, and it's also humans, a platform, a network of humans. And that's why we are so all in on Rocket Pro and our broker platform, because when we create an incredible brand and we connect it to Rocket Mortgage, also Redfin, and we build incredible technology, and we have the largest servicing book in the country, and we're partnered with the largest real estate company in the country, and then we connect it to, you know, tens of thousands of brokers on our platform. That's a platform. So that is, I don't know if you want to call it our end game, but that's what we are relentlessly focused on and executing on. And I think we've redefined what it is to be a modern mortgage company now over the last couple of years. We're not just talking about it, we're doing it. Redfin, Cooper, Now Compass, the things that we rolled out um last week at Ignite for our broker partners. I mean, it's we're obsessed with execution right now because the speed of the game is moving fast and we're accelerating it.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

I think the vast, vast majority of the industry is incredibly impressed of what's what's come out of Rocket here in the last couple of years. I'm gonna get back to the end game in a second, but let me talk friction here because friction is the buzzword of 2026. I've heard it more than any other word this year in talking with people on this podcast. And I want to talk about how Rocket is removing friction from the process ultimately. But also in the short term, how are you dealing with removing friction when you get big companies coming together that have their own ways of doing things and you're trying to all be on the same page and flow? So short-term friction, how you what you're dealing with, how you remove it, and then longer-term friction what you're trying to do with the overall combined process.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

You just put yourself in the client's shoes, the homeowner's shoes, and you can just feel the friction. If you want to buy a house, think about all the steps you go through. You go to a search site and you search for a home. You then want to buy a house. So you go to another mortgage company to get pre-approved. And then you need to get into that house. And then you go to another mortgage, you go to another company to find a real estate agent to get into the house. And then you do the mortgage and you close, and then your loan gets sold and then maybe sold again. There's other things involved like title insurance and homeowners insurance. I mean, you're dealing with five, six, seven different brands, you're dealing with two, three, four different technology platforms. All of that has margin built into it. It's very expensive for the client, everyone needs to make money. And so when you can put it all together into one platform, one technology stack, one experience, that's reducing friction and ultimately reducing cost. And that's what we've put together. But it's not just about Rocket, as you can tell. Um, we can create a frictionless process, but you have, like, especially when it comes to purchase, it's so damn local. And you have real estate agents that aren't part of Rocket, hundreds of thousands, over a million active real estate agents, and then you have brokers entrenched in every major city wanting access to that, you know, in many cases, that brand, the leads, the frictionless process. So that's what I say platform. It's not just about like, you know, having search and origination and servicing, but then how do we plug that into all these professionals out there, our broker partners, real estate agents, to be part of this platform? And that's um, I don't know again, you're asking about end game. I don't know if that's considered an end game, but that's what we're relentlessly focused on right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

No, I'm I'm gonna get back toward end game and and I would do my own process of elimination, but I'm I'm slow. And uh so I'm gonna kind of flip it back on you here. When you think about what you're moving towards at Rocket, what is still missing? And so what's next? And maybe you can't reveal too much, but but you have for people wondering what what's next, like what is what is missing from this overall process that you guys have your eye on?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

That's a great question. I think up until a few weeks ago, a piece that was missing is how do we get way more eyeballs on Redfin? And now being able to showcase these listings and the coming soon. I mean, I believe Redfin is now the best search platform in America, and it's not even close. Why would you go anywhere else when you can go somewhere with all the listings? So that was a big thing. And then obviously, there are so many different real estate uh agents. There's again over a million active producing real estate agents in the country. How do you show value to them and build relationships? And I think that with Compass, us um coming together is a very helpful way and involving our broker partners to come together in this partnership is an incredibly scalable and helpful way as well. And so I don't know what's missing. We've got to continue to execute on the strategy that we have at hand.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

I'll let you off the hook after that. Well we'll we'll end with a fun kind of qualitative question here. What's what's the buzz been like amongst your coworkers around the office at Ignite since this deal was announced? How's it feel working for for Rocky right now? You seem seem like uh you're in a pretty good place.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

It feels awesome. I mean, we are on offense like never before. We are the clear leader in the industry, and I don't mean that in a uh overly confident way. I just mean that this industry needed somebody to push this forward into the future. I mean, we've we've been closing mortgages as an industry in 30 days for 30 years. So much is the same if you were to travel back in time into the 90s and say, well, a lot of how a loan is underwritten and processed looks very, very similar. And consumers need this innovation. And so with us really pushing this into the future, I think it's very helpful for the industry. You're seeing a lot of other people follow what we're trying to do with you know, getting into servicing and trying to create a tip-to-tail platform. And so that's exciting. To answer your question, Robbie, our team members feel good to be on a team that's innovating and moving faster than anyone else in this industry. It's exciting. It's a lot of work. We're working our tail ends off, but people are, I've been here for 17 years. Our team has never been more energized. They've never been more proud, and they've never been more motivated because we're executing, but also we're coming to the world and like our brand and our Super Bowl commercials over the last few years and how we speak about uh home ownership is also how we've always spoken about it for the last 40 years. But now we're actually talking like that in front of the world, which is also exciting. Team's feeling really good, Robbie, but we got a lot of execution ahead of us.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

What does your next couple weeks or a couple months look like in terms of making sure that this is a success?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Well, we got in front of the broker community and we rolled out pro purchase power, which is essentially saying, look, we are doubling down on our wholesale channel, Rocket Pro, and we know that purchase right now is starting to come back to life, but it's a very tough and competitive market for brokers. So we are going to lean in hard over the next year. So over the next several months to answer your question and just continue to deliver great value through this program called Pro Purchase Power. It started with this compass relationship involving our partners and giving them 40 basis points off anytime they work with a compass agent on a purchase, stacked with another credit we already have. So like 80 basis points off a purchase. But that's just kind of the kickoff. We are going to get in front of the broker community on the first Tuesday of every single month and roll out a new advantage to help them win. So that's my number one focus right now, Robbie, is just continuing to deliver to brokers and back up our words that we spoke at Ignite that we are doubling down on the uh Rocket Pro channel to help brokers win in a really big way. And we're gonna prove it.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Well, I wish you the best of luck. Uh, you're certainly going to be a busy guy. The whole industry is watching. So uh hopefully it hopefully it turns out great for you. And and I really appreciate you making the time. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Of course. We always appreciate Christman, the Christman family. So it was our pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

This week's economic calendar includes NFIB, small business optimism, existing home sales, CPI, housing starts, and building permits, personal income and spending, PCE, and Q4 GDP. Treasury activity will be headlined by auctions of three-year and ten year notes, with nothing of note on today's economic calendar. We'll be in the week with agency MBS prices down worse than eighth to a quarter versus Friday. The two-year yielding 3.60, and the ten-year yielding 4.17 after closing last week at 4.13%, up 17 basis points over the course of last week. Let's wrap up with a joke and some housekeeping. Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside with only a pet dog for company. One day, about a week before St. Patrick's Day, the dog died, and Muldoon went to the parish priest and asked, Father, my dog is dead. Could you be saying a mass for the poor creature? To which Father Patrick replied, I'm afraid not. We can't have services for an animal in the church. But there are some Baptists down the road, and there's no telling what to believe. Maybe they'll do something for the creature. So Muldoon said, I'll go right away, Father. Do you think five thousand dollars is enough to donate to them for the service of the beast? To which Father Patrick exclaimed, Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus, why didn't you tell me the dog was a Catholic? Thanks again to today's sponsor. Flowfi. Dynamic Apps 2.0 is a Flowfi feature that helps lenders move beyond rigid application categories into fully configurable, loan purpose-driven applications and workflows. By enabling custom loan purposes with tailored sections, automated document requests, and compliance-friendly configurations, FlowFi helps lenders reduce friction, improve efficiency, and support specialty products at scale. Learn more at FlowFi.com and see Dynamic Apps two point zero in action at IceExperience, March fifteenth to eighteenth, in booth seven thirteen.