Mike Nolan: Yeah, it’s a great question. I would have probably answered it differently in the past than in this environment. But — we’ve never — I don’t think we’ve ever seen, and you guys would know better than me, but we’ve never seen rates move this fast in such a short period of time. I mean, in the fourth quarter of 2021, I think average rates were like at 3.25%. And by the fourth quarter of 2022, they were maybe 6.75% or something like that. So when they’re moving that rapidly, it definitely impacted purchase orders very, very quickly. We normally see the — and then the closings follow 45 days later. So in a more normalized environment with more gradual rate increases in that kind of environment, your purchase orders hold up way better.
You don’t see a dramatic fall off if rates are moving up incrementally, refi will shut off fairly quickly with a 50, 75 or 100 basis point change in rates. But in this environment, those purchase orders got choked fast. And I think just pointing out that annualized EHS number, I mean it’s kind of remarkable, going from $6 million to $4 million in one year. And again, those closings are 45 days after those fall off and purchase opens.
John Campbell: Yeah, makes sense. I mean, just to degree of volatility. I mean, I know it makes that — you guys historically have been able to manage costs the best of the bunch, but I feel like with the uncertainty, it does create some — a little bit of, I guess, lag time on the expense recognition and whatnot. But I wanted to touch on F&G real fast. Obviously, you guys got pushed back when you originally announced that deal, the pushback has been steady since then. I think this quarter showed why you did it in the first place. I mean, in the year ago period, it looks like F&G, by my math, was I think it’s about 20% of total title and F&G earnings combined. It looks like that contribution doubled up this period. I think it was 43% of earnings, just roughly for this year, I know a lot can change around the title side, but do you envision that F&G might rise to over half of total earnings this year?
Tony Park: Yeah, John, this is Tony. Yeah, it’s hard to know because we’d have to know the other side. I think F&G, earnings are a lot more predictable, which is also a reason like made that acquisition. But they talk about — and Chris and Wendy are on the phone as well, but they talk about a 1% return on assets and assets are growing at almost $44 billion, I think, at year-end. And so it’s pretty easy to do the math. And so as that piece increases, we feel very good about their contribution to the whole in 2023. As you know, just trying to model the title business, it’s going to be order dependent, and we don’t know where that heads. But I guess the good news is, it’s kind of playing out like in a tough market, and we just saw a tough market in Q4, you can see that it’s a counterbalance and a growth story against something that’s just more cyclical in the short term on the real estate side.
And so, we were happy with that. I don’t know if we get much credit for it right now, but we’re pleased with the balance.
John Campbell: Yes. Makes sense. Thank you, guys.
Mike Nolan: Thanks.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Hughes from Truist. Please, go ahead. Mark, your line is unmuted. You could please unmute yourself from your end and begin with our question.
Mark Hughes: Okay. Yes. Thank you. I was on mute. Sorry about that. The national commercial fee per file was down. You had a very tough comp. How do you see that trending in 2023 or at least early on here?
