Last week, OSFI threw mortgage advisors for a loop with this guidance at its "Industry Day":

"For borrowers with multiple mortgages, the income used for the borrower income criterion should not include income used to validate the borrower's ability to service mortgages on other properties."

Even the general public is talking about it. See this → Reddit thread.

Shortly after OSFI's comments, our inbox lit up with reader questions like:

Does this mean that none of the borrower's income whatsoever can be used to qualify for a subsequent mortgage on an income-producing property (a.k.a. non-owner-occupied rental), if that borrower already has a primary residence mortgage?

We promptly contacted the regulator (nine days ago) and received the final details today. Here's what we can tell you.

If you're a Canadian mortgage advisor, no one has to tell you that underwriting literacy is power. You know full well that an edge in know-how puts you ahead of rivals.

Among other things, it enables you to:

• Know where to place deals, finding lower cost solutions for more unique borrower cases
• Quickly spot which clients fit “A,” “Alt-A,” or private products, saving time.
• Present unique variable income (e.g., from commissions, self-employment or rentals) in ways underwriters accept.
• Restructure liabilities and credit utilization (e.g., by optimizing debt paydowns) to get clients qualified.
• Anticipate red flags (zoning, leased land, condo bylaws, rural water sources, etc.) and mitigate them before submission.
• Prepare applications that avoid “endless condition loops”
• Request only the bare minimum necessary documents from busy clients.
• Spot fraud patterns faster, saving your reputation with lenders.
• Argue effectively for exceptions.
• Foresee closing conditions, prep clients in advance, and minimize last-minute surprises.

In short, better knowledge yields happier clients and more referrals.

But most brokers run their days at full capacity. Many don't invest the time in learning. (That's not the case with those of you reading this, of course.)

Yet, there are very real opportunity costs associated with not honing one's knowledge—hence the reason for REMIC's shiny new Residential Mortgage Underwriting course.

We don't usually cover mortgage courses, as there are so many of them, and most are as thrilling as a three-hour lecture on stapler safety. But with Ontario’s regulator now demanding 10 Professional CE hours, I looked for one course that knocks off a decent chunk in one shot. This course covers half the quota—five of FSRA’s 10 CE credits for Ontario agents.

As a result, I road-tested this one myself. Turns out that REMIC's training is pretty practical, and after 18 years of writing about mortgages, learning a few things was no small surprise.

Here's a quick take...

With the U.S. government entering day two of its shutdown, there's no end in sight. Markets are forced to divine macro trends the way gamblers pick horses: with plenty of faith and not much data. All federal data releases—including weekly jobless claims and non-farm payrolls—have been postponed.

With Washington “closed until further notice,” bond markets are left scavenging for clues in private-sector data. First out of the gate was Wednesday's ADP payroll report. And let’s just say, if this were a movie, critics would be walking out at intermission.

The U.S. government has shut down, but markets saw it coming. So far, the fallout is minimal, with U.S. bond futures little changed at 5:30 am ET Wednesday.

If the impasse drags on, effects could range from the Fed having less data to make rate decisions to widespread bond volatility.

Interestingly, as Washington closes shop, politicians don't get furloughed. After all, you can't get laid off from a job you weren't doing in the first place.

Mortgage originators can stand out for any number of reasons, but in today’s hyper-digital, cutthroat market, the dividing line between remembered and forgotten is often mortgage technology.

Lenders and brokers know that client satisfaction is non-negotiable, so they leverage a menu of software to enhance it:

• Mortgage selection tools
• Smart applications
• Calculators
• Meeting software
• Document managers
• Mortgage strategy apps
• Automatic conditional approvals
• Deal status trackers
• Next-gen websites
• 24-hour chatbots
• Landing pages
• Educational features
• And many others... (Read on for practical examples.)

Thriving in the next decade will hinge more and more on wielding innovative technology. We're talking tech that makes your rivals look like they’re still faxing approvals—tech that:

1. Draws leads to your site like a Black Friday doorbuster
2. Generates referrals without awkward arm-twisting
3. Keeps existing clients loyal
4. Is exclusive (because you created it yourself)

Here's the snag

The catch with technology development is that it devours time, drains budgets and requires the patience of Michelangelo.

Or at least, it did.

What I’m about to show you is the single most potent invention in software development this millennium. Full stop. It may prove more transformative than Git/Github, mobile apps, and cloud computing combined.

Why? Because it can combine all those things. More importantly, it enables average people to build what once required developers with years of technical experience.

It's not hyperbole to say vibe coding is destined to change the world of mortgage tech development forever, and that has dramatic implications for mortgage originators. Here’s a glimpse of what that means.

Yields escalated modestly by last week’s finish as the U.S. once again played the overachiever. Data showed its economy holding up better than expected, which partly explains why North American credit spreads (the extra compensation investors demand for holding non-government bonds) fell to historically tight levels. That's an incremental positive for mortgage discounts.

Mortgage brokers have no shortage of headaches when it comes to documents. Files often entail a thick stack of documents, including:

• Down payment trails spanning multiple accounts
• Pay stubs that look like they were faxed in 1998
• Large unexplained deposits
• Partial, expired or missing documents or pages
• Missing account numbers, dates, job titles, names or addresses
• Incorrect years (e.g., for NOAs)
• Questionable screenshots
• Redactions
• Missing signatures

Worse yet, documents come in a myriad of formats and lenders like them all in one.

Purelend.ai promises to make that mess go away—for a price. At $16 per file, brokers are asking: Is it worth it?