Relationship advice columnist/billionaire hedgie Bill Ackman is floating a radical, commercial real estate-inspired idea to lower mortgage rates: What if the GSEs took away the borrower’s ability to refinance or prepay without penalty?

“One of the unique features of U.S. conventional mortgages is that they are prepayable at any time without a penalty,” he wrote on X. “While this feature is attractive for homeowners, it comes at a significant cost as buyers of mortgage-backed securities require a higher spread to compensate for the borrower’s option to prepay at any time.”

Adding prepayment penalties to new mortgages could lower rates by roughly 65 bps, Ackman said.

(🙏 If you like what you’re reading, tell a fellow mortgage junkie to sign up here.)

Ackman’s proposal centers on the GSEs offering a new class of non-prepayable mortgages. Under the structure, borrowers who refinance early would pay a prepayment penalty. That’s pretty normal in CRE finance, but quite rare in resi nowadays.

He sketched out a two-option system:
• A traditional 30-year mortgage at roughly 6%, fully prepayable.
• A lower-rate loan around 5.35% that includes penalties for early refinancing.

Ackman suggested the discounted mortgage could also be portable, allowing borrowers to transfer the loan to a new buyer if the home is sold, thus avoiding a penalty on sale.

“While the ability to prepay is a valuable option, locking in the 65 bps savings upfront over the life of the mortgage may be the difference between being able to afford a home and not,” Ackman wrote. “Commercial mortgages work this way. Why couldn’t the same approach be used for home loans?”

I don’t hate the plan, but it would require legislation in some states (CA, for example, does not permit prepayment penalties for owner-occupied properties). Also, you’d be wise to remember prepayment penalties were heavily abused in the early ‘00s by LOs, wrote Colin Robertson.

“If PPs were brought back today & limited to something like 1-year soft prepays where you could still sell whenever you wanted (but couldn't refinance w/o penalty), they could potentially provide some rate relief,” said Robertson.

(It would probably solve the EPO issue, too…)

Speaking of bold ideas, the Trump administration said they’ve ditched the 50-year mortgage idea…

I’m really going to miss Glenn Kelman. In a sea of boring business aphorisms & strained corporate gobbledygook, Kelman could always be relied on for unfiltered zaniness. In response to an analyst’s question about what Redfin would do if mortgage rates didn’t drop, Kelman in ‘24 famously said, “Plan B is to drink our own urine or our competitors’ blood — stay in the foxhole.” 

Over the years, Kelman has also rattled off quips about how “nobody is more afraid of Amazon” than him (which is why he partnered w/ them), how during one Super Bowl he spent most of the night making nachos/being in the bathroom to avoid seeing Homes.com ads, that iBuying isn't the "alpha & omega, the death, the Vishnu god of destruction," and even something about cryogenic suspension (again related to CoStar lol).

Kelman–who is departing just months after the $1.75B acquisition was finalized–is more than a soundbite. He is a visionary. Redfin didn’t ultimately succeed in changing how consumers buy & sell real estate (or even making a profit), but there’s a chance a souped-up version of the model under Rocket goes supersonic & we have housing’s first truly vertical powerhouse. Varun Krishna is taking on Kelman’s role until a permanent CEO can be found.

You can check out more of The Scoop’s coverage of exactly how Redfin is being integrated into Rocket here & here (no paywalls).

Hi Scoopers: I’m excited to share that The Scoop has an exclusive mortgage data partnership with Milliman. Each week Milliman will be providing readers of The Scoop the latest trends on securitization, origination, servicing, channel performance, repurchase, PMI, etc. Today we’re ranking the top agency mortgage servicers. Let us know if there’s something specific you’re interested in tracking quarterly.

At the end of Q3 ‘25, the unpaid principal balance of one-to-four family agency mortgages rose to $8.8T, a 0.3% increase from Q2 ‘25. The top servicers continued to consolidate market share, though notable shifts were observed as portfolios were transferred between servicers throughout the quarter.

Rocket Mortgage was the largest servicer with approximately 13.4% of the agency servicing market, followed by Lakeview Loan Servicing at 8.6% and Freedom Mortgage Corp. at 7.5%. Other leading servicers included Pennymac Loan Services, JPMorgan Chase, Newrez, Wells Fargo and Onslow Bay Financial.

The top 20 servicers manage 75.2% of the agency mortgage servicing market.

Compared to Q3 ‘24, Freedom Mortgage share saw the largest market share increase (0.8 percentage points to 7.5%), while Wells Fargo saw the largest market share decrease (-0.7 percentage points to 4.6%). Nonbank servicers, as a group, now represent 65.7% of the agency servicing market, up from 62.8% a year earlier, reflecting their continued dominance in new originations and bulk MSR acquisitions.

In terms of portfolio growth, of all servicers with more than $1 billion serviced in Q3, Selene Finance had the largest portfolio growth over the past 12 months (119.8% to $6.1B) followed by Mission Servicing Residential (114.8% to $8.5B) and Fairway Independent Mortgage (99.9% to $14.6B).

Of those same $1B+ servicers, United Wholesale Mortgage had the largest Ginnie Mae portfolio growth over the past 12 months (257.4% to $38.9B) followed by Selene Finance (136.6% to $5.3B) and Equity Prime Mortgage (80.7% to $4.1B).

This report is brought to you by Milliman. Milliman provides strategic and quantitative consulting services across the mortgage market with expertise in origination, servicing and capital investment.

Source: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae MBS Data Disclosure; Note: Data reflects Rocket Mortgage, LLC and Lakeview Loan Servicing LLC acquisitions, which closed in Q4 does not include UWM’s pending acquisition of Two Harbors.

Wooed by the tantalizing prospect of having a company within a company, you took the fat signing bonus. But a year later, you’re not feeling it. You want to move. So you’ll pay what’s left of the signing bonus, which was really just a loan anyway. Fine. But what about the P&L? Even if you have $150K in the P&L & the IMB has always said, “Bro, it's yours,” (& sent you monthly statements), that money likely won’t be cashed out upon departure. Nope. You gotta read the fine print of the contract, which, at some shops, is remarkably vague for a legal document.  

The rest of this one is only for Mortgage Scoop Insiders. Plus, we’ve also got details on Lower’s latest acquisition, why VA loans might soon get $$$, layoffs at a mortgage AI tech company & more. Become a paid subscriber to get the Full Scoop.