Leadership during disruption: Marc Trachtenberg on the future of GSEs and housing finance 

What does strong leadership look like during a volatile regulatory environment and political pressure? In this HousingWire exclusive, the CEO of Silk Title Co. Marc Trachtenberg, joins HousingWire President Diego Sanchez to talk through what the industry needs to know if the GSEs exit conservatorship. This discussion separates politics from business and focuses on how lenders and servicers can adapt to a potential future where Wall Street is a stakeholder in America’s mortgage backbone. 

Marc stresses the importance of preparation over prediction — and explains how organizations can adjust their operations to stay ahead. With sharp insight into both risk and opportunity, he offers a roadmap for navigating structural change with clarity, objectivity and purpose. 

“I spent 10 years in mortgage lending,” Trachtenberg said, reflecting on the early 2000s. “Then I opened my own mortgage company and failed miserably during the recession.” That led him into title, first as a partner at Linear and eventually into his current role at Silk. But it wasn’t until he started approaching title as a tech and workflow business, and not a paperwork process, that things really clicked.

“I realized we should stop looking at this as title,” he said. “We started thinking about it as a tech company with manufacturing-level process. How do you speed that up? How do you reduce the cost? And ultimately, how do you reverse-engineer from the borrower experience back to the workflow?”

That borrower-first mindset has led Silk to continually innovate and push for a better experience for all parties involved in the title process.

“During COVID, instead of throwing a party, we doubled down on tech,” Trachtenberg said. “We built open APIs, focused on automation, and started doing system-to-system integrations so clients aren’t relying on stare-and-compare processes anymore.”

Trachenberg also spoke with Sanchez about recent policy issues affecting the industry, particularly regarding GSE reform — a topic Trachtenberg has been vocal about. “If conservatorship ends and the GSEs go to IPO, we’ve got to be ready. Everyone thinks it might mean lower rates, but you’ve also got Wall Street now looking at the risk,” he said. “You can’t control what Washington does, but you better be prepared to explain it to your team and adjust quickly.”

Silk works with mortgage lenders across the country, and he sees his role as helping them prepare too. “It’s a partnership,” he said. “We need to have the best people and most efficient processes so that when chaos does happen, we’re ready. Not focusing on how to produce business — focusing on how to adapt to change.”

When asked how GSE reform might affect mortgage rates, Trachtenberg said, “I think you’ll see them go up first, then down. There’s going to be uncertainty at first. Wall Street may not know what to do with it. But once it flushes out, you’ll see the benefits.”

He believes exiting conservatorship is the right move — but only if done with careful planning. “The why makes sense. The how is the question.”

He also touched on cost drivers that should be addressed. “Everyone’s talking about appraisal waivers and title waivers, but the real cost issues are in tech and credit. That’s where prices are rising the fastest.”

To solve the problems he sees weighing on the industry, Silk is building AI applications — but Trachtenberg says the company won’t roll anything out until it’s fully functional. “It’s not about slapping ‘AI’ on a slide. We’re asking where it really works in our business, and our clients’. That’s the only way it drives value.”

When asked about the future, Trachtenberg sees the industry shifting in terms of people and processes. “You’ve got to get your people ready,” he said. “They’re already nervous in this rate environment — imagine how they’ll feel when change really hits. You’ve got to explain the why.”

He is still still holding onto his bold prediction: rates will have a five-handle by the end of the year. “Ask me in December,” he laughed. “No one’s been predicting anything accurately for three years, but we’ll get a good dinner out of it either way.”