6.8.26 Housing Trends; Littler’s Colton Long on Litigation; Payrolls and Policy

Today's episode includes some trends that are increasingly reshaping housing demand. Plus, Robbie interviews Littler’s Colton Long on how employers are increasingly responding to employee departures with legal action over alleged non-solicitation, confidentiality, and trade secret violations. And we close by looking at what payrolls data did to expectations for Federal Reserve policy.

Thank you to JazzX, the first true end-to-end AI platform built for mortgage. From application to underwriting, JazzX is a new operating model that helps you scale growth, boost productivity, and transform how your team performs.

The Chrisman Commentary is your go-to daily mortgage news podcast, where industry insights meet expert analysis. Hosted by Robbie Chrisman, this podcast delivers the latest updates on mortgage rates, capital markets, and the forces shaping the housing finance landscape. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just looking to stay informed, you'll get clear, concise breakdowns of market trends and economic shifts that impact the mortgage world.

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Welcome to the Chrisman Commentary, Daily Mortgage News Podcast. I'm your host, Robbie Chrisman. Topics on today's episode include why the best mortgage solution isn't always the obvious one. My interview with Littler's Colton Long on how employers are increasingly responding to employee departures with legal action over alleged non-solicitation, confidentiality, and trade secret violations. And in the capital markets, it's jobs and housing, housing and jobs that are really actually driving overall sentiment. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Jazz X, the first true end-to-end AI platform built for mortgage. From application to underwriting, Jazz X is a new operating model that helps you scale growth, boost productivity, and transform how your team performs. To learn more, visit jazzx.ai. You remember when talk of a re-IPO of Fannie and Freddie dominated residential lending news? That has certainly quieted. Poulte's attentions are diverted, and the stock prices of both are down about 30% this year. For those new to the biz, the FHFA oversees Fanny and Freddie, and the FHFA's director is Bill Poulti, who is not without his critics. But meanwhile, since we like to keep things constructive here, we have a couple links on our website, that's Crispincommentary.com, to videos from veteran LOs about how the lowest rate isn't always the best mortgage advice, and how the best mortgage solution isn't always the obvious one. If you have a client in the market to buy a home, you certainly welcome lower prices and lower rates. Although if they're selling a home, you want to get the best possible price on that. But higher prices are impacting affordability much more than rates. Realtor.com estimates that one of two things would need to happen for monthly mortgage payments to fall back to 2019 levels. Household incomes would need to rise 56%, or mortgage rates would need to fall to 2.65%. In other words, it's not happening anytime soon. We learned Friday that the US labor market significantly outperformed expectations in May, adding 172,000 jobs and extending the strongest three-month hiring streak in more than two years. This was even as consumer sentiment weakened and borrowing rose at its fastest consecutive pace since late 2022, amid higher energy costs and softer wage growth. Strength was concentrated in leisure and hospitality alongside non-residential construction linked to AI infrastructure and defense spending, while upward revision to prior months reinforced the view of sustained labor market resilience and pushed treasury yields higher as markets priced in a more hawkish Federal Reserve outlook and the growing likelihood of additional policy tightening by year-end. Beneath the headline data, markets are increasingly focused on whether the U.S. is settling into a structurally higher rate regime, supported by resilient growth, persistent inflation pressures, and rising estimates of the neutral policy rate, all of which have helped keep real yields elevated despite episodic risk-off flows. Concurrently, geopolitical uncertainty, particularly related to Middle East tensions and oil supply risks, has become a dominant driver of rate volatility, often outweighing domestic data, while investors began to reassess the implications of Fed leadership shifts and the broader evolution toward a higher for longer policy framework, leaving markets to grapple less with whether inflation persists and more with how much economic durability remains under sustained rate pressure. For today's interview, I wanted to welcome to the show Litler's Colton Long to talk about how employers are increasingly responding to employee departures with legal action over alleged non-solicitation, confidentiality, and trade secret violations. He's an experienced litigator and advisor who helps companies anticipate, prevent, and resolve complex disputes arising from the employer-employee relationship. His litigation practice sits at the intersection of business competition and employment law with a national practice leading in court in arbitration matters involving trade secret protection, business to business, and executive to business restrictive covenants and business torts. During COVID and shortly thereafter, when the industry was going gangbusters, you hear of these exorbitant signing bonuses, you hear crazy stories of luring people from one company to another. Like I said, at a high level, kind of where are things today? And maybe much like the housing market being very metro-specific, maybe it's not a blanket answer. You know, in the way I asked the question. But floor is yours.

Speaker 1 4:22

You're absolutely right. And in fact, I would say I kind of came into this industry in the pandemic when a lot of recruiting was going on, when interest rates were low and the market was extremely hot. And I think recruiters were, as you said, offering sizable bonuses to recruit individuals and to recruit teams. I think the difference that we're seeing now in this space is that the angles have changed a little bit. At that time, it was kind of a willingness, just given how hot the market was, and how, frankly, I presume, profitable the market was given interest rates and refinance opportunities. There was a lot of uh pieces of the pie to be spread around, so to speak. And now what you see is fewer signing bonuses being provided to teams or to individuals, or directed recruiting efforts at large swaths of people, irrespective of what their numbers might have been in any given year, and very um directed targets at specific top performers and top producers in the industry. That is by far, I think, the most common thread that we're seeing is less of a broad kind of scatter shot approach to recruiting individuals in the space and really focused on the top 10 to 20% of producers nationally and giving very generous packages, compensation and otherwise, and opportunities to those individuals. So it's more of a targeted approach these days, it seems to me, in the market, from what I've seen, at least in the litigation legal context, than it was uh previously in previous years as the market has shifted.

Speaker 5:57

You are on the litigation side of things, and that's where I want to focus. I want to talk proactive, reactive, offense, defense, because there's there's always competition for top talent. And I'm wondering how you're and I maybe I'll throw in the disclaimer, we're not here, we're not giving legal advice here, but are like how are firms prioritizing being defensive about their talent versus being offensive and recruiting? Because I would think that half the battle or most of the battles won by keeping your sales staff pretty happy.

Speaker 1 6:28

Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing across the mortgage industry is a real mindset shift. For years, I think recruiting was more or less purely an offensive play. So, you know, the idea was find the top producer and their teams, make a competitive offer and bring them over. Um, and the legal side of it, you know, reviewing the candidates' existing agreements, building on onboarding protocols, creating a clean record, for lack of a better term. And I think there was effort in this, but it seemed more like an afterthought. And you saw that and how it played out in litigation, I think, especially early in the pandemic and how businesses approached the recruiting process. And I think that that's changing fast. I think the smarter companies now treat hiring uh a competitor's loan officer or branch manager manager the same way that they treat an MA transaction. So with due diligence up front. They're asking to see the candidates' restrictive covenants before extending an offer, which is always advisable. Again, not legal advice, but that's just the case to mitigate litigation potential. Um, they're building what I would call a clean room onboarding process. So structured protocols that ensure no confidential information migrates. They're ensuring that the new hire's role is designed to avoid overlap with restricted activities if that's in play. And there's more of a contemporaneous paper trail showing that the company took reasonable steps to ensure that loan officers or branch managers or chief production officers, what have you, that their roles are not directly overlapping with their prior roles to avoid inappropriate and proper use of confidential information and to ensure that they stay above board with any post-employment restrictions.

Speaker 8:02

I'm wondering kind of the line between legitimate talent mobility and unlawful client or trade secret mitigation. And maybe historically you could talk about what that line has been and have we seen a shift or a movement of goalposts here?

Speaker 1 8:19

Yeah, I think it's a it's a central tension in the market space right now. The mortgage industry runs on relationships. Loan officers have borrower relationships, they have realtor referral networks, they have builder contacts. And when a top producer moves, those relationships oftentimes tend to follow. And so the question is when does that cross the line, right? From legitimate talent mobility into misappropriation of opportunities and to tortuous interference claims. You see it, I think, in the litigation record. And so, you know, before we sat down, I took a look. Obviously, I'm careful not to say too many things about my firm's clients directly and the nature of their litigation, but there are some lessons to be learned from what we've seen on the public docket as well, the kind of conduct that is at issue and what kind of crosses that line. So in earlier 2025, just for example, Union Home Mortgage sued nine former employees in the Northern District of Ohio after a regional manager resigned in January and joined American Pacific Mortgage. And within weeks, nine of his colleagues followed him out the door. And all but one of those individuals had worked directly with him. And so this was kind of a mass exit, you know, a one-targeted recruitment. But the evidence in that case that was alleged was alleging essentially an effort to not just target that one individual, but to lift out an entire team of individuals within a specific location over a very short period of time, which in many ways, you know, consistent with those allegations, was done in a way that a reasonable person should have known may well cause significant financial harm or loss. There are other cases that are like that. So there was a movement mortgage case in July 2025 that I think was filed in the Northern District of Texas. And again, it alleged that Supreme Lending had orchestrated a departure of more than 20 employees over a five-month period, including movement's uh chief growth officer, while also obtaining and taking from movement's CRM database, customer data, loan pipeline information, and proprietary business strategies. So the line between talent mobility and unlawful, you know, trade secret migration or other unlawful conduct really comes into what the degree and the nature of the conduct is and how much a reasonable business should know that that kind of conduct is going to harm a competitor in a way that seems unfair and that comes off as unfairly competitive. And so when those actions are in some ways designed or have the appearance of looking like they're going to meaningfully harm the competitor in a way that is beyond just recruiting individuals in the free market, I think that's where you cross the line into the kind of conduct that is more likely to result in litigation.

Speaker 11:04

Yeah, I'm sitting here obviously armchair quarterbacking, but you always try and figure out is this sour grapes or is there something more here that there's a legitimate gripe about? And I think I bring up the term sour grapes because I saw somewhere that more than half of employers believe restrictive covenant covenants or confidentiality violations have occurred during employee exits, which which is a certainly a significant percentage. Is this because there's growing misconduct and people think they can get away with it? Or is it heightened corporate sensitivity and what we've seen is still a tough mortgage market?

Speaker 1 11:39

I mean, look, that's a good question. It's a fair one. And I think that the honest answer is that it's both. I mean, let me unpack that a little bit. So, on one hand, I think there's genuinely opportunity for misconduct in the mortgage space and in the industry. The mortgage market has contracted, margins are thinner, purchase volume appears uneven. And so when the pie shrinks, the fight for each slice gets a little bit more aggressive. Departing employees face enormous pressure to hit the ground running at their new shop. And the temptation to take a customer list, a pipeline report, or referral database is real. And the tools to do it, you know, personal email, cloud storage accounts, even USB drives, even though we're in 2026, using AI, um, even just taking screenshots from a personal phone, it makes that kind of conduct trivially easy. So you're motivated to do it, given that there's smaller pieces of the pie available and it's easier now more than ever. So there's that. On the other hand, companies are also much more attuned to this now. So Littler's 2026 Annual Employer Survey, which my firm publishes, and I think they just published their most recent run a few a few weeks ago, found that employers across industries are increasingly concerned about what happens when employees depart to competitors, including the removal of confidential information and restrictive covenant violations. And that's not a new concern, uh, but I think that the intensity of it is new. And I think that the reason for that heightened sensitivity is litigation itself. So when a company sees a competitor get hit with a lawsuit alleging that 40 employees walked out the door and took their loan pipeline reports, that company's general counsel picks up the phone the next morning and says, What do our agreements say? Are they enforceable? Do we have an exit protocol? And are we monitoring data access? And so I think that the, you know, the litigation becomes the catalyst for introspection.

Speaker 13:32

I mean, you're a litigious guy, man. That's your litigation practice. So it's not ironic a little bit here. Anyways, uh, I uh there's a big elephant in the room, and you kind of addressed it, and obviously that's artificial intelligence because these tools are becoming more integrated into daily workflows. So I'm wondering how yeah, you hear these stories of the PII entered into a chatbot, or yeah, if you if there's a uh regulator coming to an office when you pull chat logs, just some of the things that that originators are discussing in terms of confidential things or things that might be considered violations of certain laws out there. How vulnerable are mortgage companies to confidential information leaving the organization faster and as you reference kind of less visibly than before?

Speaker 1 14:21

Yeah, I think this is an issue that, you know, both in a in a nerdy way and as somebody who represents a company in the industry in an anxious way kind of keeps me up at night. And I think it should, you know, I think rightly keep mortgage company executives up at night, too, because here's the reality. I think that AI has become one of the number one uncontrolled channels for corporate data exfiltration. I think I've seen studies out there, I don't have the citation to it, that you know, some 40 to 45% of enterprise employees are now using generative AI tools, which makes sense, of course. I use it every day in my legal practice now, for example, in different ways. So I of course that translates, if it's illegal, then of course it translates into many other facets and many other um business industries. And I think one that's very easy to leverage in the mortgage space. You apply that to the mortgage context. Loan officers and processors handle some of the most sensitive personal financial data imaginable: social security numbers, income documentation, credit reports, bank statements, and extremely valuable data. So, you know, that includes also historical mortgage information, information that is basically designed for a mortgage officer to be able to set up various alerts using whatever technology and tools that they have to determine whether or not, you know, their current mortgage rate is high and relative to the market, there's a dip for whatever reason in interest rates. They can kind of jump on an opportunity with a customer that they know might be out there in the market looking for a mortgage. If a departing employee pastes a borrower pipeline report into Chat GPT or into Claw to help, quote, organize their notes, unquote, before walking out the door, that data is gone. It's in a third-party system. Your data loss prevention tools might not catch it. Your IT team has no record of it. And it's not just departing employees. I mean, even well-meaning current employees can inadvertently compromise trade secrets by feeding proprietary data, pricing models, underwriting criteria, referral partner strategies into an AI tool to get help with a presentation or an email. So companies in the mortgage space are absolutely very vulnerable to uh loss of very sensitive data or misuse of very sensitive data. And that kind of goes back to another point, too, in terms of actual misappropriation. So the unlawful taking or use of information under state and federal trade secret laws or under a contractual obligation. With technology now, that is very easy to do. And the nature of the data in the mortgage industry in particular kind of lends itself to that information being easily taken. It's oftentimes you can generate a spreadsheet report on from a CRM database and find a way to copy and paste that into some other, you know, I'm not trying to provide ways or ideas on how to misappropriate sensitive data, to be clear. But look, I mean, you can go onto your Gmail oftentimes on a, you know, enterprise company's your firm laptop and upload that information straight to it. And if you don't have the right data loss prevention tools in place, that information can go to your personal Gmail account. And it's very difficult to trace and to track that information unless every time you are looking at a parting employee's information, you're able to spot and flag that every single time. And you are prepared to take action when that happens, if it's not properly returned when you raise it. So all of those things. I think just the nature of the data and the tools that you have make the mortgage industry in particular susceptible to misappropriation and issues and to misuse of confidential data.

Speaker 17:53

Yeah, a lot of this could scare people, and maybe it should, but we're here to kind of bring awareness to it and bring educate people. And so to put a bow on everything we've talked about today, especially considering the backdrop of there's been a rise in litigation, especially tied to group departures, lessons mortgage companies should take away after listening to this about culture retention, the long-term costs of aggressive recruiting wars in general.

Speaker 1 18:19

Yeah, and I might want to reframe the question slightly because I think that yeah, the real lesson isn't just about what goes wrong, right? It's about what the most successful companies are doing right too. So I think you can learn both from litigation itself and also those who just don't have that much litigation because they must be doing something right. You know, some of the larger companies out there, you'll note, have plenty of litigation that that surrounds these issues, and some just don't. And it's not because they're not taking action, it's because they just don't, maybe they don't have the same issues. And so here are the lessons I think that come from this. I think it starts with litigation itself. So why do we need to take action in the mortgage industry? First of all, litigation is enormously expensive. You know, you're talking about emergency TRO motions, temporary restraining order motions, expedited discovery, forensic investigations, depositions, potentially even trial, all while the company is also simultaneously trying to backfill positions, retain customers who are being solicited, and maintain continuity. And so what the best mortgage companies have figured out, I think, is that the legal strategy and the business strategy have to work together. So post-employment restrictions or restrictive covenants are an essential tool. They protect legitimate business interests and they give companies meaningful leverage when something goes sideways. But they work best when they're part of a broader framework that also includes competitive compensation, strong technology platforms, career development pathways. And I think, you know, overall the kind of operational infrastructure that makes top producers want to stay and succeed where they are. People leave mortgage companies just like they leave any other company for all kinds of reasons: compensation, personal reasons, relationships with leaders. And the companies that are proactive about understanding those dynamics are the ones that don't find themselves needing to file lawsuits every single quarter. And that's not always true. Even the companies that do it, do it right obviously still have to protect themselves in litigation from time to time, especially in this pace, this space, excuse me. And at the same time, companies need to be realistic. People will leave, teams will move. And when that happens, the companies that uh invested in their legal infrastructure, enforceable state compliant, restrictive covenants, for example, robust onboarding protocols, especially now, making sure that they have strong AI governance policies and contractual provisions that actually govern and that provide enforceable teeth to noncompliance with AI governance policies, and also documented exit procedures. All of those protocols and companies that follow those protocols are the ones that can respond quickly and protect their information and hold the right people accountable without having to file litigation. So maybe they do have to take some sort of action, but there's enough teeth to their the whole infrastructure associated with protecting their data and protecting themselves from an improper, you know, legally improper raid or mass solicitation of individuals, that maybe they never need to go to court because there's enough there that they can claw back and rectify those issues without having to file a lawsuit. And so, you know, the worst outcome, I think one thing that you learn from these cases is when a company loses a key producer, reaches for a non-compete, for example, after they lose a key producer and after they lose a key producer, excuse me, and discover that it's unenforceable because it wasn't updated when the law changed, or because the contractual consideration, that's a legal term of art, but what the other party receives that's of value in return for agreeing to those restrictions was insufficient, or because the restrictions were so broad, they were so aggressive that no court would be willing to touch it or enforce it. All of those things and the organization. Or and making sure that you have a good organization infrastructure around departures and good protocols. That's all what helps clients solve things every day. And so I think having a layered approach that kind of aligns with all of the pieces that I just talked about with infrastructure, good culture, good compensation, um good relationships internally, all of those things I think are critical in terms of mitigating the risks here that we're talking about.

Speaker 22:27

Cole, you're certainly a wealth of knowledge. And uh you speak very eloquently on the subject. So I'm very appreciative of you making the time. I think there's a ton of really good stuff in here for listeners. So thank you very much.

Speaker 1 22:37

Hey, thanks so much, Robbie. Really great being here.

Speaker 22:42

In the current environment, one of resurgent inflation, elevated geopolitical risk, and the potential for higher rates, agency mortgage-backed security investors may be better served, emphasizing shorter duration exposure without sacrificing cash flow. 15-year agency mortgages stand out in that regard, offering prepayment speeds broadly comparable to 30-year pools while carrying significant lower duration risk. Within the sector, Ginny May 15-year securities appear particularly attractive, historically prepaying faster than both conventional 15 and 30-year counterparts, despite minimal contribution from buyouts, suggesting the advantages driven by borrower characteristics rather than technical factors. While the sector's relatively limited supply can make sourcing difficult, its combination of faster cash return, lower interest rate sensitivity, and stronger underlying credit profiles makes it a compelling defensive allocation for investors seeking shelter from a potentially more volatile rate environment. This week's focus is the May CPI and PPI reports, which are expected to show continued but moderating inflation pressures, with core CPI projected to rise around 2.9% year over year, and headline inflation accelerating towards 4.2% amid an estimated 8% monthly jump in gasoline prices. Core readings are expected to remain relatively contained at roughly 0.2% month over month as tariff-related effects fade and geopolitical disruptions have yet to fully filter through to retail pricing, while shelter and while shelter inflation is likely to normalize after prior data distortions. Coming on the heels of a stronger-than-expected jobs report, these data releases reinforce a narrative of resilient growth and sticky inflation, leaving markets increasingly convinced that the Fed will remain on hold in the near term, with a growing bias toward the possibility of additional tightening rather than rate cuts later this year. With no real data of note on today's economic calendar, save for May's consumer inflation expectations, we begin the week with agent CMBS prices slightly worse than Friday's close, the two-year yielding 4.19%, and the 10-year yielding 4.57% after closing last week at 4.54%, up nine basis points over the course of the week. Let's wrap up with a joke and some housekeeping. Three guys decided to start a mortgage company. One puts in a million bucks, one 500,000, and one 10,000. The first guy says, I should be the president and CEO because of my contribution of capital. The second says I should be the EVP and COO. Last guy asks, what should my title be? They thought about it a while, and the CEO says, Yours should be the VP of music and sex. If we need your friggin' opinion, we'll whistle. Thanks again to Jazz X, the first true end to end AI platform built for mortgage. From application underwriting, Jazz X is a new operating model that helps you scale bro. Jazz X is a new operating model that helps you scale growth, boost productivity, and transform how your team performs. To learn more, visit jazzx.ai