Many would-be homebuyers and refinancers are still waiting for long-overdue mortgage transactions
An extended period of higher interest rates has left some potential home buyers and refinancers on the sidelines in recent times – and one long-time mortgage professional is hoping that some positive news in the rate market will allow these customers to cross the finish line.
Christina McCollum (pictured top), a producing market leader at Churchill Mortgage, noted that her team has many customers who started refinances last fall but have been waiting for rates to drop to finalize transactions. Many of those homeowners are still waiting.
“We started a bunch of refinances in September of last year, with the anticipation that the people who have 7% interest rates would see some relief by now,” McCollum told Mortgage Professional America. “And there's some recent buzz in the news that this is possibly going to happen this year. When other people can’t get out of the rates that are high that they’re dying to get out of, I do think it impacts all our purchases, too.”
McCollum referred to the process of starting and finishing a loan as “completing the loop.” And she feels that the longer borrowers are stuck in the loop, the more frustrating it is for both them and brokers.
“If you start a loan and you don’t end it, you don’t complete the process, it doesn’t make the loop,” she said. “When a client comes to you and they want to refi and they can’t, because there’s nothing out there that will complete the loop for them, what does that do if it’s held over for so long?”
There is hope that rates may decline, especially in the wake of the 90-day reduction in tariffs between China and the United States. While rates may trend up initially, the hope is the market may settle down, and borrowing costs could eventually fall.
Inability to finish loans causing burnout
McCollum hopes to see rates tick lower over the rest of the year. The alternative is a continued pressure on the market, and more people stuck in the loop.
“What will happen if we don’t somehow relieve the pressure?” she said. “With the tariffs and everything, what is going to happen in the mortgage industry? When we can’t complete this loop, if the consumer can’t complete the loop that comes from inquiring and then completing the loan, what does that do to the rest of their budget and their lives?”
George Carrillo of Hispanic Construction Council sees cautious optimism in Fannie Mae’s forecast, noting rising home prices and originations—but warns trade volatility may disrupt progress. https://t.co/FbWAra7sob
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) May 12, 2025
Loan professionals like McCollum are having regular conversations with homeowners waiting for the right interest rate to jump into a refinance. Some of these conversations are their own loops.
“I have one client who’s a business owner here in town,” McCollum said. “Religiously, she emails me every month on rates. We’re both getting tired of the conversation. We’re both like, ‘Not yet. I’ll let you know.’ When you go through that enough times, how does that dynamic change?”
For McCollum, who has been in the industry for more than 20 years, it feels like a uniquely frustrating time for everyone involved.
“I don’t recall the consumer feeling this level of burnout,” McCollum said. “I don’t know what that does to our economy, but it doesn’t feel like it’s headed in a good direction. But if we had better rates, we’d have a better economy. I don’t know what’s going to happen if we can’t complete this loop, but I do know that it feels bad.”
Current climate sparks memories of post-COVID refi boom
The last time McCollum recalls a similar situation was in the post-COVID environment, when lenders struggled to close loans quickly due to the high demand from borrowers seeking to capitalize on historically low interest rates.
“We didn’t have enough people in closing to close loans,” McCollum said. “So, you’d have to schedule a closing 60 days out. A lot of banks said they could do a refi, but it would be a 90-day time period. A loan would be done for a long time, but we just didn’t have enough employees.”
The exact number varies, but different websites cite that at least 1.2 million Americans wanted to refi during the post-COVID era but couldn’t. McCollum said she saw the number could be as high as 3 million.
“There were that many mortgages that were still out, not because they didn’t want to refi, but because they couldn’t get in with a loan officer,” McCollum said. “So, we weren’t able to close the loop back then, and it felt so bad. The loan officers would do the work and then get in emotional tug-of-wars with our closing departments.
“If you let a client wait and rates got even lower, you lost that client because you’ve just waited too long to close it.”
Even though the market conditions are completely different, McCollum said the feeling is very similar.
“I remember feeling this way at that time as well, where we couldn’t complete what felt normal to do,” she said. “We were in a feast at that time. So, this is famine by comparison. And it’s interesting to me to feel the same way with nothing that we felt with everything.”
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