Today I head to Connecticut for a visit with First World Mortgage and the Northeast Mortgage Summit. Today happens to be rocker George Thorogood’s 75th birthday, and mortgage bankers know that he re-did Amos Milburn’s 1953 classic tale of rent collection, land ladies, and payment avoidance. On a more serious note, I’ve been fortunate to spend some informal time recently with some fine mortgage minds discussing topics like the brutal administrative costs of bond programs, and perhaps a future allowing LOs to make price concessions to be competitive instead of the lender. The path forward for Freddie and Fannie, and the cost to consumers of that path, is a concern, but so is Agency innovation, building their executive ranks, keeping the “playing field” level regarding, for example, gfees. Competing against one another in a healthy way is a good thing, but some of the smarter minds believe that there will be a 75-100 basis point increase in rate when it eventually happens. Meanwhile, lenders continue to improve their product and technology, and in today’s episode of Now Next Later, Jeremy and Sasha talk with Melissa Langdale, Founder and CEO of Praxis Lending Solutions, about her expertise in the mortgage industry, the importance of collaboration, scalable solutions, and effective risk management for long-term success in the ever-changing market. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Sagent. Sagent brings the modern experience customers now expect from loan originations to loan servicing, where lifetime customer relationships are managed and grown. Hear an interview with Figure’s Michael Tannenbaum on capital infusions that will allow for growth in the home equity lending space.)