What to know about trade wars and your mortgage

By Diane Yu, CEO + Co-founder, TidalWave

The housing market is navigating a perfect storm: trade wars reigniting inflation fears, tariffs threatening construction costs, and mortgage rates swinging on geopolitical uncertainty. Amid this volatility, agentic AI isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a lifeline for lenders and borrowers alike. Here’s how agentic AI is reshaping mortgages in 2025:

• 1) Smarter risk assessment: Agentic AI-driven underwriting cuts processing times by 50% while improving accuracy, even as tariffs inject volatility into material costs and inflation.
• 2) Dynamic rate adjustments: Agentic AI + machine learning models analyze real-time economic shifts, from Treasury yields to lumber prices, ensuring rates reflect both macro trends and individual borrower profiles.
• 3) Personalized solutions: Borrowers get tailored loan options that adapt to their financial resilience, critical as tariffs could add $9K+ to new home prices.
• 4) Fraud prevention: With $12K+ of imported materials per home now at risk of tariff-driven supply shocks, AI’s anomaly detection safeguards transactions against fraud and price manipulation.

At TidalWave, we’re leveraging these agentic AI tools to help lenders stay agile. When 30-year rates hit six-month lows last week, our partners used agentic AI capabilities to lock in savings for borrowers—before the next inflationary wave.

The lesson? In turbulent times, AI isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about creating stability.