Wed, Mar 4 2020, 3:37 PM
I was surprised to open up shop this morning and find yields and MBS right about where we left them yesterday afternoon. I was also surprised yesterd...
Wed, Mar 4 2020, 8:52 AM
March 4th: the only day that’s also a command. Lenders across the nation will be seeing plenty of “commands” in their in-boxes asking them for money i...
Wed, Mar 4 2020, 8:33 AM
Interest rates fell along with the stock market last week as fears about the economic impact of COVID-19 sent investors fleeing to the safety of U.S. ...
Tue, Mar 3 2020, 5:03 PM
This is mostly a reprint of a piece I wrote earlier today for the MBS Commentary channel. If you read that one, you've basically already seen what fol...
Tue, Mar 3 2020, 12:42 PM
The Fed announced an emergency rate cut of 50bps today (0.50%). Great! So your mortgage rate could be 0.5% lower, right?
WRONG!
And to be cl...
Tue, Mar 3 2020, 11:01 AM
Home prices nationwide accelerated on an annual basis by 4.0 percent in January according to CoreLogic's Home Price Index (HPI). Annual appreciation h...
Tue, Mar 3 2020, 8:56 AM
Overhead on the phone line. “Uh, hello Morgan Stanley? Remember that $20 million MBS we sold you last month? Can we just forget that ever happened? Or...
Tue, Mar 3 2020, 8:22 AM
Privately funded construction gained 1.5 percent month-over-month, from a seasonally adjusted $1.008 trillion in December to $1.023 trillion in Januar...
Mon, Mar 2 2020, 5:15 PM
There is always that one stomach-churning day that arrives in the midst of an epic bond rally that makes you question everything. Well, perhaps we do...
Mon, Mar 2 2020, 11:34 AM
With Freddie Mac's average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) hitting 3.45 percent late last week. Black Knight estimates, in its current Mor...
Mon, Mar 2 2020, 9:58 AM
I'm not an infectious disease specialist. I haven't been staying up all night reading all available literature on coronavirus (CV). But best I can t...
Mon, Mar 2 2020, 9:24 AM
Mortgage rates officially hit all-time lows this morning. Even so, it continues to be the case that Treasury yields (often referred to as the basis fo...
Mon, Mar 2 2020, 8:51 AM
Huh? You don’t know what a “Gig Line” is? Someone’s buttons, belt buckle and zipper should all line up in the Gig Line. (See? And you say you never le...
Mon, Mar 2 2020, 8:39 AM
Some time ago, Freddie Mac's Economic and Housing Research Group raised an alarm over a housing shortage , calling it a crisis and estimating that the...
Fri, Feb 28 2020, 12:09 PM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 4.3 percent in January , a substantial change from...
Fri, Feb 28 2020, 11:40 AM
This post will focus mostly on the charts, which many of you have requested, as I need to turn my focus toward a few other things (especially when it ...
Fri, Feb 28 2020, 11:37 AM
A recent post on the Urban Institute's (UI's) Urban Wire blog focuses on some overlooked data on FHA's Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program....
Fri, Feb 28 2020, 9:48 AM
We’re almost at the end of February already. Mortgage bankers are funding loans, throwing axes, working overtime, learning about skydiving, all kinds ...
Thu, Feb 27 2020, 6:30 PM
10yr yields were as low as 1.24% and ended the day at 1.27% after a decent amount of volatility. MBS gained almost a quarter point, but mortgage lend...
Thu, Feb 27 2020, 5:26 PM
Mortgage rates hit the lowest levels in 8 years either today or yesterday, depending on the lender, just narrowly edging out the rates seen in early J...
Thu, Feb 27 2020, 10:19 AM
Pending home sales bounced back last month after an unexpectedly dismal performance ended the prior year. The National Association of Realtors ® said ...
Thu, Feb 27 2020, 9:09 AM
Good morning. 10yr yields are in the 1.2's. All-time lows.
We follow MBS and the 10yr Treasury yield (and other rates, when relevant) here. The f...
Thu, Feb 27 2020, 8:57 AM
I was telling my cat Myrtle that U.S. lenders are continuing to bask in the glow of a great 2019 and a start to 2020 (with March and April now looking...
Wed, Feb 26 2020, 11:12 AM
New home sales had ended 2019 in a much stronger fashion than they had started the year. December sales were at an annual rate of 708,000 (a revision ...
Wed, Feb 26 2020, 10:03 AM
2012 was almost all about the European systemic crisis, although doubts remained about the US economic lift-off as well. All of the above played out ...
Wed, Feb 26 2020, 8:48 AM
Remember the concerns of chaos prior to the UK leaving the European Union? Despite Brexit, the average London house prices increased 2.3% in 2019, the...
Wed, Feb 26 2020, 8:25 AM
There was a new round of interest rate cuts during the week ended February 21, but consumers largely ignored the additional potential for refinancing....
Tue, Feb 25 2020, 4:56 PM
Mortgage rates have been putting on a rather frustrating and exciting show in the month of February. On the one hand, they're at their lowest levels s...
Tue, Feb 25 2020, 12:22 PM
For the purposes of following along with the underlying forces affecting mortgage rates, Freddie Mac MBS essentially never mattered. Fannie had alway...
Tue, Feb 25 2020, 11:04 AM
Both the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price indices and the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) House Price Index (HPI) for December provide ...
Tue, Feb 25 2020, 9:43 AM
1.67, 1.50, 1.43, and 1.32% in 10yr Treasury yields... These are the only 4 key levels you need right now. Why are we talking about 10yr yields if t...
Tue, Feb 25 2020, 8:50 AM
People have a choice in financing their home: debt or equity. (Debt, of course, is what supports our industry. Equity, however, has been experimented ...
Mon, Feb 24 2020, 8:24 PM
Yields plummeted overnight and again this morning, giving chase to a massive global stock market sell-off due to rapidly rising coronavirus fears. MB...
Mon, Feb 24 2020, 7:18 PM
Mortgage rates continue to carve out the unlikeliest of victories in 2020 with significant help from coronavirus. The epidemic has taken a year that w...
Mon, Feb 24 2020, 12:20 PM
Builders are finding that acquisition, development, and construction (ADC) loans in the last half of 2019 were both easier to access and less costly. ...
Mon, Feb 24 2020, 10:58 AM
Coronavirus (or nCov for short) made more disconcerting headlines over the weekend and has generally proven itself to be far more capable in that rega...
Mon, Feb 24 2020, 8:52 AM
With the coronavirus driving worldwide markets and politics dominating the headlines, who doesn’t like “easy?” Easy: Krispy Kreme is launching donut d...
Fri, Feb 21 2020, 3:52 PM
Yesterday's mortgage rate commentary noted a fresh move down to the lowest levels in more than 3.5 years . With just a bit more improvement, the same ...
Fri, Feb 21 2020, 11:12 AM
If it's January it must mean fewer home sales. That, at least, has been the recent pattern according to National Association of Realtors (NARs). Exist...
Fri, Feb 21 2020, 9:49 AM
Tighter underwriting and a strong economy seemingly continue to be reflected in mortgage loan performance. In its "first look" at January loan data, B...
Fri, Feb 21 2020, 9:47 AM
The bond market specializes in making bets about future economic realities even as the stock market reflects shorter-term performance of the biggest c...
Fri, Feb 21 2020, 9:32 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said information from its January Builder Application Survey shows applications to finance new home purchases s...
Fri, Feb 21 2020, 8:31 AM
Yesterday’s commentary mentioned that there were “rumors” of Citi re-entering the correspondent channel. I apologize for any confusion. Readers should...
Thu, Feb 20 2020, 4:35 PM
At the start of the overnight session (yesterday night), 10yr yields were up around 1.58%. By 1030am ET, they'd already fallen to 1.525%. Up until t...
Thu, Feb 20 2020, 3:52 PM
Mortgage rates haven't been this low for this long in years--3.5 years to be exact. Brexit was the talk of the town in the middle of 2016 and it resul...
Thu, Feb 20 2020, 10:23 AM
In case you're just joining us, there's a consolidation going on in the bond market. That means yields are trading in a progressively narrower range ...
Thu, Feb 20 2020, 10:20 AM
The slight drop in mortgage rates in January stabilized refinance originations according to the January Origination Insight Report from Ellie Mae. The...
Thu, Feb 20 2020, 8:50 AM
Morgan Stanley buying E-Trade is causing some chatter this morning, and last night’s Democratic debate had plenty of chatter. (Some would use a strong...
Wed, Feb 19 2020, 10:53 AM
Residential construction data was mixed at the kick-off of the new year. Permits increased significantly while both housing starts and completions pul...
Wed, Feb 19 2020, 9:57 AM
Everyone is looking to increase production and cut expenses. MI companies, for example, are re-focusing on their highlighting their value proposition ...
