Fri, May 8 2020, 8:59 AM
Huh? Your company has 20,000 square feet of office space along 635 in Dallas, or 15 in Salt Lake City, or 405 in Orange County, that’s been empty for ...
Fri, May 8 2020, 8:32 AM
The Employment Situation (the big jobs report out today) is the single most important piece of economic data on any given month--at least it normally ...
Thu, May 7 2020, 5:05 PM
Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) plummeted 17.8 points in April. Combined with its 11.7-point loss in March the Index is at 63.0, its...
Thu, May 7 2020, 9:08 AM
Plenty of people are clamoring to be released from captivity , and changes in staying sequestered or opening up has become political. The lending clim...
Thu, May 7 2020, 8:55 AM
Despite an improvement in COVID numbers, relative optimism in stocks, an ongoing glut of corporate bond issuance, and freshly reinforced realizations ...
Wed, May 6 2020, 5:52 PM
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has extended several of the " flexibilities " it announced in March to assist mortgage originators in proces...
Wed, May 6 2020, 5:20 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher this week, but not enough to worry about too terribly much. Most lenders are still in the mid-to-low 3% range and...
Wed, May 6 2020, 10:44 AM
When someone asks a salty old bond market person why rates are doing what they'd doing, they might get a seemingly dismissive reply: "supply and deman...
Wed, May 6 2020, 9:03 AM
May 6th, of course, is the anniversary of the first tequila hangover. Alcohol consumption has increased as people continue to adapt to the working fro...
Wed, May 6 2020, 8:16 AM
Applications for purchase mortgages increased for the third straight week, keeping overall activity during the week ended May 1 virtually unchanged fr...
Tue, May 5 2020, 12:05 PM
Two Urban Institute (UI) analysts have raised an alarm about changes to federal regulations that threaten to limit access to important data about the ...
Tue, May 5 2020, 9:38 AM
Despite being in a narrow range in the bigger picture, 10yr Treasury yields have generally been moving moderately higher since April 21st. MBS have m...
Tue, May 5 2020, 8:23 AM
CoreLogic's Home Price Index for March showed that the spring market started out strongly, with price appreciation from the previous month of 1.3 perc...
Mon, May 4 2020, 5:04 PM
Mortgage rates moved off their recent lows to start the new week, but only slightly. That keeps the average lender very close to the lowest rates in r...
Mon, May 4 2020, 4:27 PM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has confirmed the findings that Black Knight reported on Monday morning that, while the number of forbearances ...
Mon, May 4 2020, 10:48 AM
Construction spending posted a gain in April, rising 0.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.36 trillion from a revised estimate of $1....
Mon, May 4 2020, 10:28 AM
The Federal Reserve's capacity and willingness to engage in aggressive easing measures is often described as a "bazooka." This likens it to an imprec...
Mon, May 4 2020, 9:15 AM
May the 4th be with you as the use of the word “unprecedented” continues to be… unprecedented. While in captivity it is important to get out outside o...
Mon, May 4 2020, 9:08 AM
Black Knight's new Mortgage Monitor restates some of the statistics on COVID-19 related forbearance plans it released late last week - i.e. that the n...
Fri, May 1 2020, 12:36 PM
Given their respective sizes, the economic dislocation created by the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have hit Fannie Mae harder than its competitor GSE ...
Fri, May 1 2020, 11:07 AM
Homeownership continued to be a significant builder of household wealth in the first quarter of this year. ATTOM Data Solutions said home sellers nati...
Fri, May 1 2020, 10:46 AM
In the day ahead, bonds will digest manufacturing PMI data, both from IHS-Markit and ISM. While these PMIs are typically big market movers--potential...
Fri, May 1 2020, 10:01 AM
May Day! A third of the way through with 2020 already? Seven weeks ago it was, “Use us! We have the best rates and products!” Now it’s, “During these ...
Fri, May 1 2020, 9:47 AM
The number of COVID-19 related forbearance plans in effect with servicers continued to increase through the end of April according to a report release...
Thu, Apr 30 2020, 6:15 PM
Freddie Mac eked out a positive comprehensive income of $0.62 billion in the first quarter, $1.83 billion less than it posted in the fourth quarter of...
Thu, Apr 30 2020, 5:42 PM
Mortgage rates moved down again today, bringing the average lender to their best levels since the 2nd week of March. Some lenders are quoting their lo...
Thu, Apr 30 2020, 9:36 AM
As analysts pour through Freddie Mac’s earnings announcement this morning, when in captivity it is important to settle in quickly and efficiently . It...
Thu, Apr 30 2020, 8:47 AM
January, February, and especially March were wild months for bond market volatility. Coronavirus was increasingly responsible for that volatility dur...
Wed, Apr 29 2020, 11:06 AM
Everyone knew that the March pending home sales report, the first real measure of the impact of the COVID-19 impact on the residential real estate mar...
Wed, Apr 29 2020, 10:42 AM
This morning, GDP came out at -4.8%, the lowest reading since Q1, 2009. The Fed announcement and press conference will be out this afternoon. But th...
Wed, Apr 29 2020, 10:26 AM
While in captivity it is important to observe the impact of your words during meal times. (Warning: Rated R for language.) Measuring the financial imp...
Wed, Apr 29 2020, 8:16 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a second strong week for purchase applications last week although refinancing continued to dominate th...
Tue, Apr 28 2020, 6:24 PM
Mortgage rates moved down nicely last week and have either maintained or improved upon those levels this week. The catch is that the good times aren't...
Tue, Apr 28 2020, 6:24 PM
The U.S. Homeownership Rate reached its highest level in nearly seven years in the first quarter of 2020. The Census Bureau said the rate, 65.3 percen...
Tue, Apr 28 2020, 10:04 AM
In what will probably prove to be the last full month of normal home sales for a while , prices of homes accelerated significantly. The S&P CoreLogic ...
Tue, Apr 28 2020, 9:24 AM
Trillions of dollars of stimulus on the Fiscal side and many additional trillions of liquidity on the monetary side of the equation are helping stocks...
Tue, Apr 28 2020, 9:05 AM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 9.2 percent in March, up from a 5.5 percent gain i...
Tue, Apr 28 2020, 8:55 AM
Folks will sometimes ask me, “It’s a mystery: What kind of preparation do you do before writing your daily commentary?” Although no one has ever filme...
Mon, Apr 27 2020, 11:52 AM
Freddie Mac has laid out options that borrowers who have been granted forbearance on its loans have when it comes to repayment. The company's CEO Davi...
Mon, Apr 27 2020, 9:16 AM
After weeks and weeks spent discussing the impacts on growth surrounding coronavirus, we're only now getting to the very first release of GDP for Q1. ...
Mon, Apr 27 2020, 9:00 AM
My Saturday was going pretty well until I realized it was Sunday. Remember when Zillow was going to take over the mortgage business? Or Amazon was goi...
Fri, Apr 24 2020, 11:34 AM
Given the size and scope of the unemployment/forbearance issue, mortgage investors have been rightfully concerned about the timeliness of payments, an...
Fri, Apr 24 2020, 9:52 AM
March is typically the strongest month of the year for mortgage performance, probably because, according to Black Knight the receipt of tax refunds al...
Fri, Apr 24 2020, 9:19 AM
While in captivity, it is important that your home have the right ambiance, and emanate a welcoming feeling . Real estate agents are good at helping s...
Thu, Apr 23 2020, 6:23 PM
Let's get caveats out of the way upfront. No conversation about mortgage rates would be complete without a reminder that some lenders are very far rem...
Thu, Apr 23 2020, 2:21 PM
Two Urban Institute (UI) researchers pose a pertinent question in a recent paper. Laurie Goodman and Aaron Klein ask, "What is the purpose of the Fed ...
Thu, Apr 23 2020, 11:59 AM
The Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development's report on new home sales in March is the first real time indication of the impact ...
Thu, Apr 23 2020, 10:16 AM
Other than things like a mother’s love, most things have prices, and Fannie and Freddie set theirs for buying loans in forbearance in the form of tack...
Thu, Apr 23 2020, 10:03 AM
I'm making an executive decision. It's time to simplify the discussion even more than we already have when it comes to what's freaking the mortgage...
Wed, Apr 22 2020, 1:24 PM
The initial House draft of the CARES Act included a provision that Fed and Treasury would "extend credit to mortgage servicers that have liquidity nee...
