Playbook: Triage first, strategy second.

We finished writing this postscript in our Into the Crucible series between two major mortgage conferences. At the HousingWire Mortgage Banking Summit on October 1, 70% of executives participating in our live survey expected mortgage rates of 7.5% or higher six months out. Two weeks later, at the MBA Annual Convention, MBA’s Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni delivered a sobering outlook for the next two years: Flat production and little expectation of any significant rate relief. Mortgage execs leaving that presentation were decidedly somber. The exhibit hall told another story. Neither of us has seen so many technology companies promising to transform mortgage operations since before the 2008 financial crisis. AI was everywhere, with promises of dramatically lower origination costs and improved productivity. And the AI promised land seems tempting… However, if we added up all the ROI and cost-saving promises made by technology vendors over the years, the cost to originate a mortgage would be zero by now. Yet industry origination costs remain stubbornly high for many lenders. And the 200 Basis Point Performance Gap persists as of the current quarter: The 2Q2026 performance gap among ...