Impact of COVID-19. The extent and duration of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic to our business and our borrowers, particularly rising inflation, increasing interest rates and dislocation in capital markets, remains unclear and presents risk with respect to our financial condition, results of operations, liquidity, and our ability to pay distributions. See Item 1A. Risk Factors and Note 2 for further discussion of COVID-19.

Agency Business Commitments. Our Agency Business is subject to supervision by certain regulatory agencies. Among other things, these agencies require us to meet certain minimum net worth, operational liquidity and restricted liquidity collateral requirements, and compliance with reporting requirements. Our adjusted net worth and liquidity required by the agencies for all periods presented exceeded these requirements.

At December 31, 2023, we were required to maintain at least $20.3 million of liquid assets in one of our subsidiaries to meet our operational liquidity requirements for Fannie Mae and we had operational liquidity in excess of this requirement.

We are generally required to share the risk of any losses associated with loans sold under the Fannie Mae DUS program and are required to secure this obligation by assigning restricted cash balances and/or a letter of credit to Fannie Mae. The amount of collateral required by Fannie Mae is a formulaic calculation at the loan level by a Fannie Mae assigned tier, which considers the loan balance, risk level of the loan, age of the loan and level of risk-sharing. Fannie Mae requires restricted liquidity for Tier 2 loans of 75 basis points, 15 basis points for Tier 3 loans and 5 basis points for Tier 4 loans, which is funded over a 48-month period that begins upon delivery of the loan to Fannie Mae. A significant portion of our Fannie Mae DUS serviced loans for which we have risk sharing are Tier 2 loans. At December 31, 2023, the restricted liquidity requirement totaled $76.2 million and was satisfied with a $64.0 million letter of credit and cash issued to Fannie Mae.

At December 31, 2023, reserve requirements for the current Fannie Mae DUS loan portfolio will require us to fund $36.6 million in additional restricted liquidity over the next 48 months, assuming no further principal paydowns, prepayments, or defaults within our at-risk portfolio. Fannie Mae periodically reassesses these collateral requirements and may make changes to these requirements in the future. We generate sufficient cash flow from our operations to meet these capital standards and do not expect any changes to have a material impact on our future operations; however, future changes to collateral requirements may adversely impact our available cash.

We are subject to various capital requirements in connection with seller/servicer agreements that we have entered into with secondary market investors. Failure to maintain minimum capital requirements could result in our inability to originate and service loans for the respective investor and, therefore, could have a direct material effect on our consolidated financial statements. At December 31, 2023, we met all of Fannie Mae’s quarterly capital requirements and our Fannie Mae adjusted net worth was in excess of the required net worth. We are also subject to capital requirements on an annual basis for Ginnie Mae and FHA, and we believe we have met all requirements at December 31, 2023.

As an approved designated seller/servicer under Freddie Mac’s SBL program, we are required to post collateral to ensure that we are able to meet certain purchase and loss obligations required by this program. Under the SBL program, we are required to post collateral equal to $5.0 million, which is satisfied with a $5.0 million letter of credit.

We enter into contractual commitments with borrowers providing rate lock commitments while simultaneously entering into forward sale commitments with investors. These commitments are outstanding for short periods of time (generally less than 60 days) and are described in more detail in Note 12 and Note 13.

Debt Obligations and Operating Leases. At December 31, 2023, the maturities of our debt obligations and the minimum annual operating lease payments under leases with a term in excess of one year are as follows (in thousands):


Year	Debt Obligations		Minimum Annual Operating Lease Payments		Total
2024	$	1,855,247	$	10,820	$	1,866,067
2025	2,523,024		11,206		2,534,230
2026	1,996,721		11,297		2,008,018
2027	4,510,642		9,782		4,520,424
2028	946,089		9,064		955,153
Thereafter	154,336		27,755		182,091
Total	$	11,986,059	$	79,924	$	12,065,983

At December 31, 2023 and 2022, our leases had remaining lease terms of 0.8 – 10.1 years and 0.2 – 10.4 years, respectively, with a weighted average remaining lease term of 7.6 years and 8.2 years, respectively, and a weighted average discount rate of 5.7% and 6.8%, respectively. We recorded lease expense of $10.9 million, $9.6 million and $9.3 million during 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Unfunded Commitments. In accordance with certain structured loans and investments, we have outstanding unfunded commitments of $1.31 billion at December 31, 2023 that we are obligated to fund as borrowers meet certain requirements. Specific requirements include, but are not limited to, property renovations, building construction and conversions based on criteria met by the borrower in accordance with the loan agreements.

Litigation. We are subject to a variety of claims and suits that arise from time to time in the ordinary course of our business. Although management currently believes that resolving claims against us, individually or in aggregate, will not have a material adverse impact in our consolidated financial statements, these matters are subject to inherent uncertainties and management’s view of these matters may change in the future. We are currently neither subject to any material litigation nor, to the best of our knowledge, threatened by any material litigation. The following are details of a litigation that was settled and discontinued in 2023.

In June 2011, three related lawsuits were filed by the Extended Stay Litigation Trust (the “Trust”), a post-bankruptcy litigation trust alleged to have standing to pursue claims that previously had been held by Extended Stay, Inc. and the Homestead Village L.L.C. family of companies that had emerged from bankruptcy. There were 73 defendants in the three lawsuits, including 55 corporate and partnership entities and 18 individuals. A subsidiary of ours and certain individuals and other entities that are affiliates of ours were included as defendants.

In June 2013, the Trust amended the lawsuits, to, among other things, (1) consolidate the lawsuits into one lawsuit, (2) remove 47 defendants from the lawsuits, none of whom were related to us, so that there were then 26 remaining defendants, including 16 corporate and partnership entities and 10 individuals, and (3) reduce the counts within the lawsuits from over 100 down to 17 (as consolidated, the "Action"). For more detailed information regarding the Action, please refer to Note 14 of our 2022 Annual Report.

After extensive motion practice and discovery, in early December 2022, the plaintiff and certain co-defendants, including our affiliates, commenced discussions regarding a possible settlement of the Action, and in late December 2022, those parties reached an agreement in principle to settle the Action for a total of $38.0 million. We agreed to pay up to $7.4 million of the settlement amount, which amount was accrued in our December 31, 2022 financial statements.

In early March 2023, the parties to the settlement finalized the settlement documents and on April 25, 2023, the Bankruptcy Court approved the settlement. Following the Bankruptcy Court approval, the parties made the agreed upon payments, the broad mutual releases became effective and on June 23, 2023, the litigation was discontinued, with prejudice.

Due to Borrowers. Due to borrowers represents borrowers’ funds held by us to fund certain expenditures or to be released at our discretion upon the occurrence of certain pre-specified events, and to serve as additional collateral for borrowers’ loans. While retained, these balances earn interest in accordance with the specific loan terms they are associated with.