Contributors

Darryl Davis: Why your pricing talk is not landing with real estate sellers anymore

Here’s a truth that’s going to sting a little: if you’re still walking into listing appointments armed with the same pricing presentation you used in 2021 (or earlier!), you’re bringing a butter knife to a sword fight. The housing market has fundamentally shifted, and the agents who haven’t shifted with it are watching listings expire, […]

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We may finally be near the bottom of the mortgage market cycle

I started in mortgages in 2007 for a brokerage office in Salem, Oregon. Within my first year and a half, I was one of the top-producing loan officers in the office. At the same time, the world around me was coming apart.  I didn’t realize at the time that the industry I had just joined

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The cost of cheaper: Why lower score fees could raise mortgage costs

The debate over FICO versus VantageScore has followed a familiar script: A headline price gets amplified into a savings narrative, that narrative becomes policy and then the secondary market quietly starts doing the math the advocates forgot to run. In a multi-trillion-dollar mortgage-backed security (MBS) market, the score fee is a rounding error. What is

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Why AI is still a subpar real estate agent replacement

I recently got a question from Real Estate Writer Michele Lerner for Florida Realtor magazine that cut right to the chase of this technological moment: Can AI replace real estate agents?⁣ Here’s my answer: Not yet. And maybe not ever, but not because I’m anti-tech. Quite the opposite. I’m an early adopter. I love tools

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Busy isn’t productive: How top real estate agents should actually allocate their time

For years, real estate rewarded one thing above all else: activity. More calls. More showings. More emails. More hours. The assumption was simple: if you stay busy enough, the results will follow. But that equation is starting to break. Clients are more informed. Deals take longer. Expectations are higher. Time, not opportunity, has become the

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What Artemis II can teach every real estate agent about building a career that goes the distance

On April 6, 2026, four astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission did something no human being had ever done in the history of our species. They traveled 252,756 miles from Earth, shattering a record that had stood since 1970, when the crew of Apollo 13 was pushed to that distance not by triumph, but by

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The GPS for equity: Building the industry’s first true navigation infrastructure

As automation reshapes mortgage operations, the industry’s next challenge is to help borrowers navigate the complex decisions that shape their lives—not just to close the loan faster.   For the better part of a decade, the mortgage industry has been obsessed with a single metric:  speed. We have poured billions into “Sales Infrastructure”—digital applications and lead

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Home inspection trends reshaping the 2026 housing market

The home inspection industry is undergoing a quiet shift that directly impacts mortgage origination timelines, closing procedures, and lender risk assessment. As the owner of an inspection company, with over 3,000 inspections completed across Texas’s fastest-growing markets, I’m seeing trends that fundamentally reshape how lenders, agents, and buyers approach the inspection phase of the transaction.

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Building mortgage AI agents that compliance teams can trust

The mortgage industry is no longer debating whether AI has a role to play. That part is over. The real conversation now is about what kind of AI can work inside a business where decisions must be documented, policies must be followed, and every workflow may eventually be reviewed by risk, audit, or compliance. That

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Age matters in home equity decisions

A borrower’s age should shape every financing recommendation, yet it is often treated as a secondary detail when a senior wants, or needs, access to a portion of their equity. Consider that most mortgage advice is built on the assumptions that the borrower will continue working and has time and resources to recover from financial

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