A Family History of America’s Mortgage Market

On April 13, 1983, my parents said goodbye to their Brooklyn rental & closed on a small starter home in Greenwood Lake, NY. They paid $62,500 for the 1,000-square-foot home, which was around the corner from a lumberyard, a bodega & a goose-poop covered beach.

At the time, my father was a detective in the NYPD & my mother was an editor. They had boy-girl twins in 1986 & money was always tight. My mother went part-time to care for my sister & me. Down to one income, my parents struggled w/ the 13% interest rate on the mortgage & high property taxes, which were over $4,000 a year. But they made it work.

They separated in the early ‘90s & sold the house for $121,500 in ‘95 after the divorce was finalized. Today, that home in Greenwood Lake would likely sell for around $400,000. After remarrying, my mother & father each bought suburban homes in the NYC area before eventually moving to NC.

At my mother's kitchen table in Raleigh last week, my family debated whether my generation has had it harder than they did. They were shocked to learn that my rent & childcare expenses alone run $6,700 a month. In their view, millennials do have it harder. College was cheap for them, childcare costs were a fraction of what they are now, & one could buy a decent starter house on a $25,000 household income.

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But the math isn't so straightforward. Per a WSJ analysis, the oldest millennials are now 45, & median individual income for both millennials & boomers in their early decades of adulthood — adjusted for inflation — was roughly on par. Gains over the past decade have actually put millennials in a better financial position than many recognize.

Housing, though, remains a particular point of tension. As WSJ noted, millennials shopping for homes in the mid-2020s after a steep run-up in prices have had a tough time. But so did boomers buying in the early 1980s, when mortgage rates peaked above 18%. "It was indeed more expensive in today's dollars to buy a home during that period, and pretty substantially so," said Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist at First American. The relative affordability of the 1990s & 2010s further underscores how much timing matters, not just across generations but within them.

To that point, my parents & aunt moved to Raleigh in their mid-60s and 70s & paid cash for their suburban houses. It’s something they could do because the value of their NYC-area homes had tripled or quadrupled by the time they sold. They bought during prosperous periods w/ relatively low rates & built equity over decades as inventory shrank & population grew. My wife & I didn't make enough to buy in Brooklyn during COVID, missed the window, & hope to buy in a year or two. It's not a complaint, just a recognition that timing shapes outcomes for every generation of homebuyers. (Ironically, I can’t qualify for most mortgages now anyway because The Scoop is less than a year old.)

LOs I've spoken w/ say they're increasingly seeing boomer parents contribute six figures in gift funds to help their millennial kids break into the market. That wealth transfer will accelerate in the coming years, but it won't fix the underlying structural problems.

Which brings me to two people I know & a challenge I'd put directly to the mortgage industry, which is gathering this week in Washington for the MBA's National Advocacy Conference.

My father lives alone in Raleigh & has some health issues. He struggles to maintain his house & would love to downsize, but the right kind of housing stock near his family & friends simply doesn't exist. So he stays put, a willing seller w/ nowhere to go.

Meanwhile, friends of mine in Columbia, SC have a cute, functional home they've outgrown. They'd love to move up, but giving up their 3.1% mortgage rate would at minimum double their monthly payment. They're not going anywhere either.

These are two distinct but equally paralyzing lock-in effects, & together they represent inventory that never hits the market. The first is a supply problem, & the second is a rate problem. Mortgage professionals have tools that can help address both, like bridge loans, HELOCs, assumable mortgage programs, & creative financing structures for move-up buyers. But too often these conversations don't happen because LOs aren't thinking of themselves as problem-solvers for sellers, not just buyers.

Building more housing (or more morbidly, waiting for boomers to pass) is the only real long-term inventory solution. But in the meantime, the mortgage industry has an underappreciated role to play in unlocking the inventory that already exists. I’d like to see them talk more about it in D.C.

A Denver-area couple has filed a federal class action-seeking lawsuit against home equity sharing company Unison, claiming the firm's pitch of "no debt, no interest, no monthly payments" masked a product that functions more like a high-cost loan.

Katharine & Charles Kane signed with Unison in October ‘18 after receiving a direct mail flyer promoting the product as interest-free. They received roughly $87,956 in exchange for giving Unison a 70% stake in their home's future appreciation.

As of March ‘26, Unison estimates the Kanes owe between $178,038 & $278,618 — potentially more than three times what they originally received, before accounting for additional fees & charges. The couple, who have lived in the home for over two decades, now face a stark choice: sell before retirement, or wait out the 30-year agreement into their 90s when a massive lump-sum payment comes due.

The lawsuit alleges Unison deliberately labeled its product an "option contract" to sidestep Colorado's consumer credit, mortgage lending & consumer protection laws, thus avoiding the licensing, disclosures, and interest rate limits those laws require. The agreements span nearly 100 pages & are filled with complex cross-referenced formulas that they claim make it nearly impossible to calculate true repayment costs upfront.

The proposed class covers all CO residents who entered into a Unison agreement since the company began operating in the state. Land records show nearly 300 such agreements in Colorado's five largest counties alone.

Better founder & CEO Vishal Garg is raising some eyebrows by getting into online fights w/ anonymous people on Twitter (no, I won’t call it ‘X’) as Better’s stock experiences volatility. In one example, Garg scolded X user “Reignots” for bringing up the Sarah Pierce case (it was dropped), the SEC investigation (charges were never filed), but admitted to being way off the mark on past financial projections. 

He also appeared to take a shot at publicly traded Figure Technologies, which has a $7.7B market cap (Better’s is roughly $578M).

Garg also shared his thoughts on AI & Tinman adoption, which was pretty interesting.

And…his self-assessment as a manager & CEO.

But most interesting to me was a "candid" tweet that promised cuts & execs getting "their hands dirty" in the age of AI.

He added: “I want you all to know this so you can be prepared for the ups of BEAST mode (numbers get better) and downs of BEAST mode (columbia journalism majors fresh off a pro-hamas rally write clickbait hit pieces on us on some irrelevant blog or failing business publication).”

(I never attended Columbia J-School, so he’s definitely not talking about me 😅.)

FHA Commissioner Frank Cassidy, who also serves as the FHA's deputy assistant secretary for single family mortgages, has gone on leave through at least the end of April, according to Politico Pro. Cassidy's leave, which is related to "family matters," began earlier this month. Ginnie Mae President Joe Gormley is serving as the acting FHA commissioner. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary for single-family & is a housing finance veteran.

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