Adam Pollitzer
Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Rick, it's a good question. Look, I'd say it's certainly the case to a certain extent, but let me parse it, right? So our most recent vintages, and let's put 2022 into the mix there because the note rate underlying our 2022 book, really the back end of it is also meaningfully higher than that sort of the historical lows that we saw in the 2020 and 2021 books. But regardless of the vintage, the approach that we've taken to underwriting, to risk selection, to managing our mix has been the same. And so whether it's a first half '24, full year 2023, or 2019-2020 vintage, they're all high quality, right? We've applied that same rigor in risk selection as we always have. We've sourced comprehensive reinsurance protection on all of those vintages. And so there's really, there's no notable difference in the underlying borrower loan level, geographic, or product risk attributes that underpin different vintage years of production. And so the real difference is one are the note rate, and two are the amounts of embedded equity. Now the note rate actually, which I think is what you were focused on, we don't necessarily expect that that will be a core driver of differences in credit performance, because remember, everything is going through a rigorous underwriting process. And so yes, the profile of the loan and the headline affordability on say a early '24 loan versus a 2020 or 2021 mortgage is different, but the borrower who qualified for that loan in 2024 is equally as well qualified with whatever the headline credit statistics are for that particular loan, that particular purchase, as they were in 2020 or 2021. There is, I'd say, an intangible benefit, right? And there may be an extra motivation for a borrower in 2020 or 2021 to try to stay current on their loan, because the intangible value of having a 3% or sub 3% note rate, and we'll have to see how that plays out. But the much bigger difference, driver of differences that we expect to emerge over time is simply the amount of embedded equity, right? The borrowers who took out loans in 2020, 2021 and purchased a home have seen record amounts of home price appreciation, significant equitization of that risk, and that provides them with both incentive to stay current and options to cure their default if they ultimately fall behind that may not be available for more recent borrowers. So we do expect that over time, we'll see differences in the performance of different vintages, but it's not because of the underlying credit profile of the borrower or the underlying note rate. It's really because of the HBA path from origination.