In this insightful episode of Lykken on Lending, David Lykken sits down with Mark Fleming, Senior Vice President of Decision Scientist and Chief Economist at First American Financial Corporation, to tackle some of the most pressing issues in the housing market. From the persistent housing supply shortage and regulatory burdens to the role of interest rates and the potential economic impacts of the new administration, this conversation dives deep into the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of the mortgage industry. Mark brings his expertise to the table, breaking down complex economic concepts into relatable insights, making this episode a must-listen for industry professionals and anyone curious about the dynamics of housing and finance.
[David] Listeners, I’m always honored when I get to talk to someone like our guest, Mark Fleming. He is the Senior Vice President of Decision Scientist, which I want to get into, and also the Chief Economist for First American Financial Corp. a leading provider, which is, of course, we all know who First American is, leading provider of title insurance and settlement services, et cetera, et cetera. But Mark is just one of these people that when I talk to economists, sometimes you don’t understand everything they say. You’re not sure where they’re coming from. There’s sometimes a little arrogance. What I love about Mark is there’s no ego arrogance. There’s just a real human being sharing facts with guys like me who doesn’t always understand everything in economic theory and goes behind it or economic rules, but he breaks it down and I’m so excited to have him joining us. Mark, I want to say thank you so much for taking time to be here to share your thoughts about all that is going on? And man, do we have a lot going on.
[Mark] My pleasure, good to see you in the new year, David. I gotta say, I think the reason I break things down, that’s how I got through graduate school. It’s the only way to figure my way through all that economics.
[David] Well, that’s a great place to start. How did you get to where you’re at? And I say that for all the new industry participants that are listening to our podcast. A lot of people say, how did he do that? That sounds like something I’d like to do. So what’s your journey to where you’re at?
[Mark] I think a little bit of luck and happenstance. I don’t think when I was in college, I was like, I want to work in housing finance. That wasn’t exactly my first choice. But when I got to graduate school, I knew that I liked economics. I went to graduate school to study economics and I got into a lot of modeling and started working with land use and real estate data. And basically the research assistantship and the dissertation started sort of focusing on those kinds of things. So learning about housing policy and then at Fannie Mae, housing finance and housing finance policy sort of just sucked me in. I think for most of us in the industry, once you get in, you realize what a good one it is and so you stay.
[David] I got you. It’s such an important part of human transactions. Getting someone into a home is the most basic need, meets one of the Maslows of hierarchical needs, shelter and we’re providing that. And it is a real feel good thing when we do it and do it. Well, there’s a lot of stress in the industry and we’re experiencing a lot of stress right now. What’s going on out there. What I’d like to get is your thoughts about the new Trump administration, especially when it comes to the cabinet picks related to finance. Are you excited, nervous, happy, sad?
[Mark] I guess I’m always excited for a change because you just don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think that sometimes the known quantity, you get used to it. So change is always good, even though sometimes it can be a little bit disconcerting. I think when it comes to us, obviously the real big one or the big issue that’s affecting us this year with the change of administration is the fact that there’s now going to be a bigger push we believe, by the FHFA to bring the GSEs out of conservatorship. And so that’s probably the biggest and will likely be the most consuming or probably all consuming amongst many. David, you and I have been around long enough. I do recall like we’ve been trying to bring them out of conservatorship ever since we put them in over a decade ago. Well, they’re back to kind of where they started. Most of them started inside of the government and then we spun them out. And so if you look at the history, so, what are your thoughts on that? Do you see the pros and cons? Is it like a you know, pro con list on them in and out? it’s kind of like change. I don’t want to see it change because we’ve got such a healthy ecosystem right now.
[David] And I get nervous about them changing. They were outside in a quasi status with a good federal backstop, but what’s your thoughts on them in or out, either way?
[Mark] Well, as you said, going back to the great depression when we sort of founded what became Fannie Mae and then ultimately following along with a Freddie Mac, and FHFA as well, or FHA, as well. they all started inside. They were taken out, some were brought back in. We can take them out again. And throughout all of the weather in, weather out, they’ve managed to basically maintain the plumbing. And that’s the most important part, right? is the plumbing in the housing finance liquidity and risk transfer process. So, we can debate the finer points of what’s necessary to make viable non-conservatorship organizations and how much capital they need to have and all those good things. But I think, we just passed the 25 year mark for year 2000. Remember that January 1st, we thought the world was potentially going to end because no computer clock would understand how to tick over on January 1st.
[David] That’s right. Exactly right. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Got through that and so many other
[Mark] It was fine. It was fine. I think the liquidity and the plumbing that the conservatorship organizations, the GSEs provide, you know, the day the clock ticks over, it’ll still be there.
[David] Yeah, it’ll still be there, yeah. I think there gets to be a lot of angst around some of this because it’s the fear of the unknowing, and especially this administration coming in. There’s been so many bold statements made and certainly been a massive resistance to it happening, but it is happening. And the next thing on the list is the Federal Reserve. Trump’s made some pretty strong statements about the Federal Reserve. He’d like to do away with it. I would take an act of Congress, literally, for that to happen. I don’t know that that’s gonna happen. But you listen to Chairman Powell talk about things and there seems to be a little bit of obstinance about Powell and which maybe he’s just asserting with a strong presidents coming in that this is going to remain fiercely independent of this administration. And I like that. I think that’s a healthy thing. So I respect what Powell is saying, but the federal reserve decision to cut or not count or to cut now, cut now, never later, whatever. mean, What are your thoughts on this? They’re in the debacle.
[Mark] Well, they are in a bit of a pickle. We were all expecting that there would be more cuts this year as of their September projections, they were suggesting a full percentage point more this year. And now even as of December, they’d already pulled that back to only two. And the markets, if you believe the financial markets, they’re thinking one or possibly no additional cuts this year. So, it’s going to be hard to tell. I’m not so sure. It’s sort of like Groundhog Day. We were talking about the Fed and cutting rates and not cutting rates last year. This, yeah. But at the end of last year, when they were cutting rates, mortgage rates really had nothing to do with it. And treasury yields kind of went and did their own thing. And so I’m not so sure that it matters so much as it did before, as we thought it did, that the mortgage rates and 10-year treasuries, which the mortgage is generally tied to, will kind of do their own thing. Regardless of unless the Fed really does something surprising, which is highly unlikely. And our forecast right now are that by the end of this year, the 30 year fixed rate mortgage will be about 6.4%. So that’s not that much lower, honestly, than 7% handle that we’re roughly around right now. So essentially, I’m saying rates are going to be around here this year. And the truth is, again, David, you and I a little older than some maybe, hey, that’s normal.
[David] I know, I mean, you and I have been through so many of the cycles where I remember doing loans at 18, 20% back and when Volcker responded to the problems that we were having back then. so the Fed will do what the Fed does, but it does look like we’re going to be staying here. Then it gets into really looking at the overall housing industry and what does this mean for mortgage rates? Let’s start there. And then I want to get to the housing part of it.
[Mark] Well, as we said, the mortgage rate will likely sort of wobble around where it is, maybe drift modestly lower. My professor in graduate school said, give a number or give a time, but never give both. And so it’s like, yes, if I box myself in then, well, yeah, and the is probably big. So we could go.
[David] Do you have a range of me? Do you have any idea? I do have a range that I guess that’s where I’ve been trying to go with my question.
[Mark] Up or down a half percentage point around sort of that 6.4 mark. We may still end up at 7. We may get a lower to 6. Wouldn’t it be great if we actually got below 6% even if only fleetingly at some point this year? But I think we’re range bound somewhere in that 6. The first digit on the mortgage is likely to be a 6 for most of this year.
[David] Yep. Yep. I agree with you. So Mark, when you look at rates nearing getting close to a quarter of their all time recent high back in 2008, we at a top at a peak? And is there any reason or what are the factors that are going to drive rates lower? They say they’re getting less data dependent and more looking at the bigger picture. any insights you can provide us based on the fed speak you’re hearing.
[Mark] Yeah, you had to bring up 2008. I shudder because remember 2008 was really when the bubble popped, right? and to your point, mortgage rates are now around the same level they were at that point. And the fact that mortgage rates had gone up modestly, because the Fed was actually beginning to do a little bit of tightening at that point is really what caused the bubble to pop. Remember those 228 and 327 loans, which they always worked if you could refinance into a same or lower rate, but then all of sudden that wasn’t there. Now, I’m not suggesting that the same thing happens again. We don’t have 327s and 228s. Everybody’s got 30 or fixed rate mortgages. It’s a much different world. So we’re not going to have this sort of financial crisis crash just because rates are this high. But I think it goes and speaks to the fact that really since that point, rates have been abnormally low by any historic standard, right? We cut rates pretty dramatically in the global financial crisis in large part to stabilize the housing finance system that was needed. But then we kept them low for more than a decade. And so finally now we’re getting them back up off that low point. And I think that’s really what’s causing the dislocation in our industry this time around is sort of the getting back to normal is actually a little bit painful.
[David] Right, yeah, it is, it has been. Now that we had COVID thrown in there. But now we have some real interesting dynamics going out in California with the fires out just south of you. Well, you’re not in California, are you? You’re on the East Coast.
[Mark] Luckily I’m in Washington, DC, but obviously my company’s based there. have a lot of colleagues in LA, so definitely concerned for them.
[David] Oh, you’re a lot of them are being impacted by this. When you look at the fires, I look at the possible repercussions, the domino effect with insurance companies, possibly failing with those massive losses that are out there. When you look at so many loans that have been sold on a scheduled servicing basis and you look at how many companies can afford to continue to make advances in securities when it’s so exorbitant. Any thoughts on that right now? The current drama that’s playing out.
[Mark] Yeah. I mean, this is quite shocking, right? I think the latest estimate is over 10,000 housing units have been destroyed by the fires and they’re not over. So, yeah, so I mean, it is a big deal. It’s interesting because these are homes that don’t exist anymore. They’re not providing the shelter yet. The people are technically still responsible to make the mortgage payments. And we do know from past experience in major natural disasters that significantly impact the housing stock. Essentially, if you’re an economist, you look at this very dryly as a supply shock and a demand shock, because essentially you are removing a chunk of supply of stock of housing and dislocating those individuals, many of whom will need to find some other form of shelter when there’s less stock of shelter out there. So it creates dislocation on both sides. And we find that it generally increases demand for rental properties. And of course, because many of those rental properties were also damaged, that’s also now even shorter supplied stock of housing, it significantly drives up rents over the following year to two years.
[David] Yeah. There’s been a concern about recession. What is this? What’s going on in California and the new administration? Is there any chances of a recession? they always said what takes us out of a bad place is a war. Well, this kind of feels like a war. You look at the net effect. It looks like a war took place over there in parts of California. is this going to actually help us avoid a recession your thoughts?
[Mark] Yeah. Well, I don’t think there was going to be a recession in the first place, but I mean, while it is devastating and it is a lot of homes and the U.S. economy is very big, very big. So on the scale of the U.S. economy, this is not a significant component, even though obviously this is, I don’t want to minimize the feeling and pain and the dislocation that’s happening in people, but 10,000 homes, big deal in LA, there are, yeah.
[David] Well, it’s a dollar amount, think is, is that when you look at the size of it, then I get the triple effect of, you know, could this cost for some insurance companies to fail? And that could have a rippling effect. I don’t want to over dramatize this thing and make it worse, but I do get concerned about systemic problems coming as a result of this on a domino effect.
[Mark] I think what’s much more likely than actual insurers going under is insurers repricing or being unwilling to provide insurance the next go round. Yeah.
[David] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’ve already seen a number of insurance companies pull out state farm, which has been my insurer for many, many years. Let’s talk a little about housing supply. This is an area that you’re an expert at all aspects of this mortgage rates and what’s happening, but your specialty is really in housing. I’m really interested in getting your thoughts about prices, we are dealing with a shortage of supply even more so now in California with what’s gone, evaporated literally out of the market. But we’ve got a real housing supply issue. I’m looking at things, I’m investing in a company called Brix Modular, B-R-I-X Modular, which is manufacturing really high-end quality homes. And we’re seeing more new construction come on in different ways in the manufacturing way like this. What is your prognosis for our housing supply issue? because that’s the sticky problem regardless of where interest rates are at. I don’t care if interest rates fail to ultimately, the SPIRT refinances, but is it really gonna help the housing shortage? The shortage is the shortage.
[Mark] Yeah, this to me is the single most important problem more than any other. it was around before the pandemic. was around during the pandemic. It’s still around now and likely going to be around for a number of years to come is that we have literally just not been building enough housing, multifamily or single family. And that can be even more exacerbated in parts of the country like Southern California is even tighter than some other parts. But we’ve writ large, not been building enough for at least a decade, the estimates vary. Economists like to agree a lot with each other. economists estimates of the amount of shortages anywhere from a million to upwards to 7 million homes. And to put that in context, there’s over a hundred million residential properties in the U.S. So you’re talking about maybe 5% to at most 10%. But that’s significant because it’s in certain places much more so than others, right? There’s actually excess housing and the Midwest, not enough housing on the coast. Yeah. But I know I looked at that and we’ve been sort of trying to figure out, where does this all go? And, you know, we’re building about a million, at least a million single family add to that multifamily, about 1.5 million housing units a year right now. Is that enough? Is that not enough? We went back and found data. It’s not, it’s not close. And so Okay, so I’m an economist. I’m going to cheat a little bit here. I’m going to pull up my little slide that I had because I have to sort of talk everybody through it and we’ll share David. I’ll share it with you. You can put it out on your social media. So we went back and look at how housing starts over time since the 1920s. Okay. And have to do one special thing to the numbers because we can’t look at them in raw nominal terms because obviously the size of the US economy, the size of the construction industry was very different in the 1920s. lot fewer people in the US than today. So we’re going to do it on a per 1,000 households to essentially control for the size of the economy and the population. In the 1920s, we were building about 10 new homes per 1,000 households. And then remember the 1920s, the roaring 20s, 10, 10, 10 units per thousand. In the 1920s leading into the Great Depression, remember the 1920s roaring 20s, we had a big expansion industrialization. We got as high as almost 35 in just a short number of years ramped up to building 35 per thousand. Okay. Then the Great Depression hits and obviously we stopped building.
[David] Just say that again. What’s that number? You were, we were building 10. Okay. Wow.
[Mark] Then we returned a little bit, but then World War II hits and we intentionally chose to build tanks instead of houses, right, in World War II. So we were sort of battling around that was we hit a low point right after World War II of only five per thousand households in 1945. Here’s what’s amazing. Two things actually happened. And a little quiz, David, two things post World War II that affect the housing industry. Any idea?
[David] Baby boom.
[Mark] Baby boomers, but what did the government do for all those soldiers coming back? Provided all the GI financing. a GI bill which had preferential financing for giving them loans. And one other thing was the new deal, we built the highway system. So all of a sudden you’re building access out into all that farmland around all the cities and providing financing to people. And the home building industry exploded. about 10, under 10 years, it went from five per thousand to 45 per thousand.
[David] Yes, dude. That’s right. Yeah.
[Mark] And essentially we ramped up and started to build the suburbs. I’m a big TV fan. Remember the TV show, The Wonder Years? That was it, right? We have never built as many homes per thousand as we did in that era. It’s basically been going down and down and down. mean, not linearly since then. Right now, we are barely building between 10 and 12. And yeah, for a thousand. And then how does the growth of our population factor in that? That’s just looking at what, that a particular age group or is that just generally everybody? for a thousand. Housing stock built, multi-fac, starts essentially, starts for a multi-family or single-family. The thing is by doing per thousand, it might be more, sheerly more than in the 1920s, but that’s per thousand people, it’s not that much. And that’s what matters because you have to build relative to the scale of demand. yeah, yeah, yeah.
[David] but from a percentage of the population. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I that. So what is the solution to this? mean, what can we do? Obviously, build more housing. Yeah, I get that. That’s a pretty obvious thing, know. Add more supply, but the regulation is so burdensome across the country, especially when you look at California, they’re talking about how long it takes. And the cost, I think it was in San Diego, the cost that’s built into every home is north of 50% to build a house. There’s that much regular. story cost in there. is ludicrous.
[Mark] Yeah, the National Association of Home Builders, they sort of break down all these costs and they estimate that just in the last five years, six years, since 2016 to 2021, that’s the most recent survey they had, costs went up by 11% to an average of $94,000 of regulatory costs. That’s the nationwide average. And to your point, there are some places that are much higher. And yeah, I would argue that probably these regulatory cost burdens didn’t exist in the 40s and 50s. I lived in a house not too long ago that was built in 1954, and it was still around, right? So yeah, they were built very well back then. And I think that realized they had access to land, they had lots of nearby land, they didn’t have regulatory cost burdens. These are all the things that make the 1940s and 50s different from today. That’s not to say that we can’t do it again. I mean,realistically, regulatory burdens, that’s a burden of our own proverbial doing, right? We can undo regulation just as we did regulation if we wanted to. And that certainly would help, but you do still have the challenge of the land because the large amounts of unbuilt land are that much further away from the urban cores today than they were back then.
[David] Right. What about, what about the ADUs that they’re looking at putting on properties? It’s getting very popular in California, also here in Austin, Texas area. What about the ADUs?
[Mark] David, you can tell your listeners we did not plan this, but that’s a perfect segue, right? So if you can’t build further away, build more densely closer in. Exactly. And so yes, accessory dwelling units play a good example of how you might do that. The only problem is the problem is much bigger than a few ADUs, right? It really does have to be that you turn low density residential housing, sort of your one acre, half acre, two acre, residentially zoned lots and you have to sort of up zone them to significantly higher densities. That does two things. One, obviously it provides more housing close in, but it also provides affordable housing. Remember, last time we talked, that’s not an unforgotten problem is the affordability issue. If you build slightly smaller homes and you sort of share the regulatory costs on that lot and other things, you can essentially build more housing and more affordable housing.
[David] Yes, yes, yes, yes. I get excited about what that means. We’re looking at smarter homes. We’re looking at more efficient homes. And so there’s some exciting things that are happening, but what about upgrading our current housing stock? We’ve got some housing that needs, like our freeways, like our infrastructure. I mean, there is a serious upgrade. What is the opportunity in that?
[Mark] Well, I just have to laugh. There’s a great stat that just came out recently. I think it said the average age of sort of the housing stock, sort of the average age of all the housing out there is something like 39 or 38 years old. Housing is in its late 30s now. And they were saying, and it’s going up. Well, I got to do a little math check here for our listeners. If we roughly replace about 1 % of the housing stock every year, vbAnd we started building it largely in the 1940s and 50s. You see where this is going. If I’m only replacing 1% of it with new, the other 99% gets what? A year older. And by the way, even economists can forecast age pretty well, right? So it’s like 99% of the housing stock gets one year older, 1% is new. Of course the housing stock is getting older. But to your point, we should be actively seeking out the older dilapidated sort of dysfunctional stock and really focusing on renovating it, but most importantly, renovating it to a higher density than the one that it was before. And that will help create more.
[David] I remember, when the MBA put out their statistic, would you like this? And there was a lot of controversy about the bill passed the house where we’re increasing density in these communities. But like I own just about a little over two acres. And I’m realizing that we don’t have a density problem in the little community I live in, but it could be here. And all of a sudden there could be four homes on what I own as my private residence here. So, It’s very possible. started looking at that and I go, sure, we can put a house here, house here, probably two in the back and increase that. That’s what happened to my house up in Washington state. There’s now six houses on the two and a half acres horse farm that I had up there. So I look at it, it is a trend that is already well underway. As far as building out, do we see anything happening with transportation that would cause us to say that we’re going to be more effectively or efficiently and cost effectively building out further from city centers.
[Mark] I mean, this is a challenge. mean, yes, you can keep going further out and there is some interplay of can, there’s some larger like Seattle to get landlocked or waterlocked mountain locked. yeah. I love San Francisco is a perfect example. The peninsula is surrounded by water on three sides, right? So there are challenges with ultimately, I don’t think you fix it by continuing to build out because at some point it’s too far away for the drive, right? And I get it, maybe we don’t have to go into the office five days a week anymore, although even that is now beginning to change this year back to the five day work week. And the roads, if you build a road, what we’ve typically found is you widen the road, you build the road, it just gets congested again. Because you encourage the building, the people move out, and then there’s all the commuting happening.
[David] Yep. Which goes back to, need to work in, focused in on what housing stock, we can make it denser, you know, practically working with what the housing stock we have and going into increasing density, which is.
[Mark] Yeah, how can you make it denser? Or if you want to build further out, don’t build a bigger road, build a public transportation alternative. But this is beginning to go against the American ethos, like driving my car and all that, especially where you are in Texas, right? So I think there are sort of societal cultural challenges to some of the things that we might need to do to adequately supply reasonably priced housing with reasonable commutes to working locations that aren’t necessarily how we’ve grown up and lived. And in large part, that has to do with, I love the little history lessons here, that lots of America was built and grew up in the car era. So if you look at Europe, these cities in Europe that were built when the cost of transportation was really high, you know, took a long time for me to walk or ride a horse to the factory. Right. And so everything was built more densely because transportation cost essentially was really high. We create the model T, the ubiquity of the car and a cheap car and free roads to drive the car on with the interstate highway system. And all of sudden you reduce those travel costs and this is what happens. Boom, we spread out. But can we do that indefinitely? I don’t know.
[David] Yep. Yep. It’s really, as we wrap this up, I want to get your predictions for 2025, both from, we’ve already talked about where interest rates are. We’re going stay pretty much where they’re at. We may have a pretty wide range in this year. That could be for certain. agree with that. But when it comes to housing, what are we going to be, I don’t see any quick solutions to the housing supply problem. Any thoughts? No.
[Mark] No quick solutions, no quick solutions. Longer term solutions, really focusing on sort of, I think from the federal government’s perspective, how do you incent local governments to change their regulatory and their behavior? Because these are decisions that get made at the local level, not the federal level. So maybe there are ways to create incentives for all of that. But in the short run, we’re looking at an asset in short supply. if you are a homeowner, that’s actually pretty good for you. You got a 30 year fixed rate locked in mortgage and an asset that’s in short supply. If you’re a potential first time home buyer, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard for a number of years.
[David] It’s continue to be difficult. Yeah, we’re looking at property values right now. We’re looking like in Austin, which is really interesting. I mean, that’s the city we live in. But it’s true of many other parts of market. I work with closely with Allan Weiss of used to be of Weiss Analytics, who used to be the co-founder with Case Schiller Weiss of the Case Schiller Report. And we’re actually seeing property values in a good amount of Austin, the North section and the Eastern section, and then down South again all going down in value at this point. It’s a temporary aberration in the markets. What I predict or what I’m thinking, I’m not an economist, I’d love to get your thoughts on that. Parts are closer in, it’s also newer stock where we’re seeing still heavy demand and good price, home price appreciation in a certain sector, close to the center of the city and a little bit of west from the city, which happens to represent a lot of new construction. Very interesting, these dynamics, what’s playing out.
[Mark] I’m reminded of the old adage, right? Real estate is of course local and that applies not just to a metro versus another metro, but within metropolitan areas. And we’ve seen this happen before that there’s sort of this concept in economics of the urban rural fringe. Essentially, you could imagine a ring roughly around any city. It’s not a perfect ring, but you could imagine it. Where all the basically converting agricultural land into low density residential, that’s your fringe, right? And that’s because essentially it’s worth it. There’s enough demand collectively pushing that fringe out that it sort of converts that farm. The farmer gets paid more than it’s worth for him to continue farming because the person, the developer, sell more houses at a higher price. But that fringe can sort of shift back the other way and you can be on the proverbial wrong side of it again. We saw that happen in many metropolitan areas in the global financial crisis. And so you see price corrections happen when sort of that the fringe sort of comes back the other way. And now there you are, you’re a home builder, you built all these new homes, or maybe you’re the first owner of a new home that was built a few years ago. And you’re now on the wrong side of the fringe because it’s contracted essentially. And that has to do with the demographic in and out flows in markets over time. housing is a pretty good investment. You usually don’t lose value, but nothing in life is guaranteed, right?
[David] Yeah. Well, I think there’s the macro trend is definitely with the supply issues that you’ve outlined and we have a growing economy and not much chance of a recession. So I think the current issues are going to be there. Incomes got to go up and we got to solve the affordability issue more than anything else while we’re working on a long-term problem. And that is the supply issue
[David] Such a joy to have you on the podcast. I can’t stop thinking about all our previous conversation. We’re going to have you back a lot in 2025 And I really want to zero in on one of the areas that you’re passionate about. And that is the housing. bring you into some of the things that we’re seeing developing and anything you have that comes up that your studies that you’re doing, please bring it to our attention so we can amplify that what you’re talking about.
[Mark] Sounds good, excellent.
[David] Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.
[Mark] Thank you, David.
Important Links
Mark Fleming serves as the senior vice president for Decision Science and chief economist for First American Financial Corporation, a leading provider of title insurance, settlement services and risk solutions for real estate transactions that traces its heritage back to 1889. In his role, he leads an economics team responsible for analysis, commentary and forecasting trends in the real estate, mortgage and title insurance markets.
Fleming’s research interests primarily include real estate and urban economics, data science and insurance market structure. He has published research in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Structured Finance and Geographic Information Sciences. He has presented his research at academic association meetings and has also been published in the book, “Advances in Spatial Econometrics.” Fleming is a 6-time (2018-2023) Pulsenomics Home Price Expectations Survey Crystal Ball awardee, has testified before Congress and is the author of six U.S. patents.
As a trusted and influential voice with more than 20 years of experience in the mortgage and property information business, Fleming is frequently quoted by national news outlets and industry trade publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg News and Housing Wire and he is a frequent guest on high-profile broadcast news channels, including Yahoo Finance, Reuters News, CNBC, Fox Business News and NPR. Fleming regularly contributes commentary and analysis to the First American Econ Center blog and co-hosts a top-rated biweekly podcast, REconomy, that focuses on timely topics in real estate.
Before joining First American, he developed insights and analytical products for CoreLogic, and property valuation models at Fannie Mae. Fleming graduated from the University of Maryland with a Master of Science and a doctorate in agricultural and resource economics and holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Swarthmore College. He lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area.