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AI in Mortgage Lending – Still a Work in Progress
Artificial intelligence is often described as a transformative force in mortgage lending, but its presence in the industry is far from new. What has changed is the scale, sophistication, and reach of the technology, particularly in how lenders process documents, assess risk, and manage the vast amounts of data that underpin every loan decision. In…
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U.S. Inflation Reaches a Three-Year High in May
U.S. consumer price inflation continued its upward climb in May, with the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) rising 0.5 per cent month-over-month, in line with consensus expectations. On a year-over-year basis, prices increased 4.2 per cent, the highest reading in three years and a notable acceleration from the 3.8 per cent recorded in April. May…
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Bubba and His Truck: Why Homebuilding Defies Economies of Scale
In his essay “Where Are the Economies of Scale in Homebuilding?”, Brian Potter, engineer and author of the Construction Physics newsletter, continues his broader examination of construction productivity and housing economics. Over a series of essays, he has shown that construction productivity tends to lag far behind manufacturing, often failing to improve at all, and…
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U.S. Employment Surprises to the Upside in May
The U.S. labour market showed surprising strength in May. Nonfarm payrolls rose 172,000, easily surpassing the consensus forecast of 85,000, while upward revisions to the prior two months added a further 93,000 positions. The three-month average monthly gain now stands at 188,000, a dramatic turnaround from the negative 4,000 average recorded in February. Pessimism about…
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Canada’s Labour Market Rebounds Sharply in May, But Policy Picture Remains Mixed
Canada’s labour market surprised to the upside in May, adding 87,800 net jobs and firmly putting recession talk to rest. Employment gains were broad-based across sectors and regions, with construction posting its largest monthly increase since 2023 and six of ten services subsectors recording gains of 10,000 or more. Even manufacturing, which has been battered…
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Weak Economy, But Not a Recession
Canada’s economy contracted at an annualized rate of 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, falling well short of both consensus expectations and Statistics Canada’s flash estimate of 1.5 per cent growth. The result came in roughly 1.6 percentage points below the Bank of Canada’s forecast and marked the second consecutive quarter of…
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A New Regime at the Fed: Warsh, Forward Guidance, and What It Means for Rate Markets
Kevin Warsh was sworn in as the 17th Chair of the Federal Reserve on May 22, marking what he has described as a “regime change” in how the central bank operates and communicates. For mortgage investors, the implications of this shift are significant. Warsh has been explicit and consistent on one point in particular: he…
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