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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Since the 2008 housing bust and subsequent Great Financial Crisis (GFC), mortgage lending has steadily shifted away from big banks. In the years that followedamid tighter regulations, higher capital requirements, and elevated litigation riskmany large banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, reduced their mortgage footprint. In that void, nonbank lenders, also known as independent mortgage banks (IMBs), such as Rocket Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), and LoanDepot, gained market share. Now, a top Federal Reserve official is openly questioning whether policy and regulation went too farand is signaling that a policy shift may be coming. In a February 16 speech at the American Bankers Associations Community Bankers Conference, the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision, Michelle Bowman, pointed to what she described as a significant migration of mortgage origination and servicing out of the banking sector over the past 15 years. According to Bowman: In 2008, banks originated around 60% of mortgages and held the servicing rights on about 95% of mortgage balances. In 2023, banks originated around 35% of mortgages and held the servicing rights on about 45% of mortgage balances. Thats pretty in line with the data ResiClub pulled from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. During her speech, Bowman suggested that post-2013 capital rulesparticularly the treatment of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs)* under Basel standards**may have contributed to the mortgage retreat by banks. MSRs, which represent the expected value of servicing income when loans are sold into securitizations, were assigned higher risk weights and subject to deduction thresholds after the crisis. While regulators tightened those rules over concerns about valuation volatility and model risk, the capital treatment also made servicing and, by extension, mortgage origination less economically attractive for banks. The result, Bowman implied, is a mortgage market increasingly concentrated in nonbank firms that lack deposit funding and operate under different supervisory and resolution frameworks. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Bowman said, borrowers with bank servicers were more likely to receive forbearance than those serviced by nonbankshighlighting structural differences that can matter during stress periods, she says. Bowman previewed potential changes now under consideration, including removing the deduction requirement for MSRs and making mortgage capital rules more sensitive to loan-to-value (LTV) ratios rather than applying a uniform risk weight. Such changes would not unwind post-crisis reforms but could modestly improve the economics of bank mortgage activity, Bowman says. Here’s what Bowman said in her February 16 speech: Two regulatory proposals will soon be introduced that, among other broader changes to the regulatory capital framework, would increase bank incentives to engage in mortgage origination and servicing. First, the proposals would remove the requirement to deduct mortgage servicing assets from regulatory capital while maintaining the 250% risk weight assigned to these assets. We will seek comment on the appropriate risk weight for these assets. This change in the treatment of mortgage servicing assets would encourage bank participation in the mortgage servicing business while recognizing uncertainty regarding the value of these assets over the economic cycle. “Second, the proposals would also consider increasing the risk sensitivity of capital requirements for mortgage loans on bank books. One approach would be to use loan-to-value ratios to determine the applicable risk weight for residential real estate exposures, rather than applying a uniform risk weight regardless of LTV. This change could better align capital requirements with actual risk, support on-balance-sheet lending by banks, and potentially reverse the trend of migration of mortgage activity to nonbanks over the past 15 years. James Kleimann, founder of The Mortgage Scoop, writes in a recent newsletter: This stuff is quite complicated, but basically, the Fed is weighing a plan to remove the rule that banks must deduct MSR assets from regulatory capital while maintaining a 250% risk weight for those assets. In plain English, that means regulators treat $1 of MSRs like $2.50 of risky assets. What the appropriate risk weight level should be remains the central question, but this potential change is something the MBA [Mortgage Bankers Association] has been arguing in favor of for years. Big picture: If adopted, the proposals could mark the beginning of a gradual rebalancing in housing financeone that brings more mortgage origination and servicing back inside the traditional banking system after more than a decade of migration outward.
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E-Commerce
For the first time in history, podcasts have overtaken talk radio as the most-listened-to medium for spoken-word audio in the United States. Podcasts, including video podcasts, eclipsed AM/FM talk radio (which notably doesnt include listening to music on the radio), with 40% of listening time, as opposed to 39% for radio, according to Edison Researchs Share of Ear survey. Researchers have tracked these statistics over the last decade. In 2015, AM/FM radio accounted for 75% of the time Americans spent listening to spoken-word audio. At the time, podcasts accounted for just 10%. Year over year, that gap has slowly closed, as podcasts boomed in popularity, increasingly keeping us company on daily commutes and during menial tasks. Over half of Americans, 55%an estimated 158 million peoplelisten to a podcast monthly, and 40%, or 115 million, listen every week. This year, the scales finally tipped. Although the difference is only 1 percentage point, this is the first time podcast listenership has surpassed radio. Whether the gap continues to widen remains to be seen. Watching podcasts has become a growing trend over the past year, perhaps shifting the balance in podcasts favor. YouTube said viewers watched 700 million hours of podcasts each month in 2025 on living room devices like TVs, up from 400 million the previous year. Streaming platforms like Netflix have inked deals with iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports to bring podcasts to their services. Daytime talk shows have also suffered blows, including the recent cancellations of both Kelly Clarksons and Sherri Shepherds TV talk shows. Apples audio-only app has taken a hit as well, falling from 15.7% of monthly podcast listeners preferred platform in 2022 to 11.3% in 2025. But audio-only isnt going anywhere, at least for now. According to Triton Digitals annual podcasting report, only 7% of audiences exclusively watch their favorite podcasts, while 13% exclusively listen. The remaining 80% alternate between the two. The meaning of the word podcast has vastly expanded and grown increasingly diffuse as our media habits shift, Joe Berkowitz recently wrote for Fast Company. As for the future of podcastingnot talk radio, not TV chat show, but instead a secret third thing.
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E-Commerce
eBay is laying off about 800 employees, or 6% of its full-time workforce, saying the move is a push to align with its strategic priorities. It comes a week after the company announced it was acquiring second-hand clothing app Depop from rival Etsy for $1.2 billion. Depop is popular with millennials and Gen Z, and is part of eBay’s bid for younger consumers, who are gravitating to second-hand shopping online for sustainability and financial reasons. eBay Inc. (EBAY) was trading up 3.3% in midday trading at the time of this writing. This is eBay’s third round of layoffs since 2023. The online second-hand retailer cut 1,000 jobs in 2024 (9% of its workforce), after it cut 500 jobs in 2023 (or 4% of its workforce), per TechCrunch. We are taking steps to reinvest across our business and align our structure with our strategic priorities, which will affect certain roles across our workforce,” a spokesperson for eBay tells Fast Company. “We are grateful for the contributions of the employees impacted and are committed to supporting them with care and respect. The Silicon Valley-based online retailer has also been heavily investing in artificial intelligence. The eBay spokesperson said the cuts are not AI-related. eBay financials This latest round of layoffs comes just two weeks after eBay reported strong fourth-quarter earnings for 2025, with revenue coming in at $2.97 billion, beating estimates of $2.88 billion; and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.41, beating estimates of $1.35. “2025 was a milestone year for eBay, and our results reflect the strength of our strategy and the disciplined execution behind it,” eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said in that earnings release. “As we continue to harness AI to elevate thecustomer experience worldwide, eBay is in the strongest position it has been in years.” eBay has a current market capitalization of $40.2 billion.
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E-Commerce
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