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Walker Webcast: Wells Fargo’s Kara McShane and Kristy Fercho Talk Mortgage Finance
“The most influential women in mortgage finance” happen to both work for the same company. That description is how the guests on this week’s Walker Webcast were billed, and since one is head of home lending and the other is head of commercial real estate at Wells Fargo, it’s difficult to disagree.
Beyond their job descriptions, Kara McShane on the CRE side and Kristy Fercho on the single-family residential side are both key figures in the real estate finance industry. McShane serves on the boards of both the Real Estate Roundtable and nonprofit Breaking Ground, while Fercho is chair-elect of the Mortgage Bankers Assocation.
On the Walker Webcast, both McShane and Fercho noted that the current state of the market isn’t what most would have anticipated at the onset of the pandemic nearly two years ago. Fercho said it would have been difficult to predict that 2020 and 2021 would end up as the two biggest years in home-loan origination on record, while McShane said everyone has been surprised by the speed and depth of the economic recovery.
Near term, “I am fairly bullish on 2022, for a whole host of reasons,” McShane told Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker. She cited the abundance of liquidity in the market—including an unparalleled selection of capital sources—and the “unprecedented” dry powder to invest.
And while inflation remains a concern and will likely lead the Federal Reserve to begin raising the federal funds rate in 2022, McShane was sanguine. “I think commercial real estate will be fine,” she said.
On the single-family side, affordability is a continuing challenge, and Fercho said, “I have never seen such alignment” within the industry on addressing the issue. Resolving the crisis will entail movement on a variety of fronts, from lender initiatives to government policy.
It will also require the combination of everyone’s efforts; Fercho said that unfortunately there’s no single magic bullet that could wipe out the problem conclusively. “Each of us has a role to play,” she said.
Both heads of lending said there’s also more to be done in terms of integrating technology into the process. “It’s sad to me that mortgage is still the most paper-intensive process in financial services,” said Fercho.
Wells Fargo has introduced a number of technology-based solutions for its clients, and McShane said the entire industry needs to get on board. In any industry today, she said, “you’re either a disrupter or you’re being disrupted.”
On-demand replays of the Dec. 15 webcast are available by clicking here and through Walker & Dunlop’s Driven by Insight podcast series.
Pictured, at top: Kara McShane. Below left: Kristy Fercho.
- ◦Financing
- ◦Economy
