Tue, Jun 18 2019, 8:56 AM
With the backdrop of a global bond market rally today, let’s look back at Randy Newman singing, “It's money that matters, hear what I say. It's money ...
Mon, Jun 17 2019, 6:13 PM
Freddie Mac's forecast for June sees more dark clouds than usual , but few of those are on the housing front. The company's Economic and Housing Resea...
Mon, Jun 17 2019, 5:49 PM
Mortgage rates were only modestly higher today. Most lenders were still quoting the same rates compared to Friday with the only difference being sligh...
Mon, Jun 17 2019, 11:09 AM
The National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB's) measure of builder confidence broke out of its multi-month slump in May, rising 3 points. Much of ...
Mon, Jun 17 2019, 9:25 AM
In the week just past, the bond market began by threatening to bounce toward higher rates after an impressive, 5-week rally to the lowest levels since...
Mon, Jun 17 2019, 9:19 AM
I find builder’s naming policies amusing. Let’s call a subdivision “Hidden Valley” or “Lonesome Pines” when it isn’t hidden or lonesome anymore with 5...
Fri, Jun 14 2019, 6:27 PM
Somehow, the bond market managed to end the week at 2.084% (10yr yield) which is exactly where it ended last week. In all my years of market-watching...
Fri, Jun 14 2019, 6:07 PM
While we can't say that this week's best mortgage rate offerings were quite as good as last week's best, they were pretty darn close. In fact, quite a...
Fri, Jun 14 2019, 12:59 PM
Attendees at the Ginnie Mae Summit commemorating the agencies 50 th anniversary on Thursday heard from both Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of the Departmen...
Fri, Jun 14 2019, 9:08 AM
The House Financial Services Committee (FSC) passed a clutch of bills this week, several of which will assist homebuyers and homeowners. Two directly ...
Fri, Jun 14 2019, 9:05 AM
“The City of Baltimore, Maryland suffered a ransomware attack on May 7, 2019. Due to the attack, the City is currently unable to record documents unti...
Fri, Jun 14 2019, 8:31 AM
In the day just past, bonds managed to add modestly but meaningfully to a 2.5-day rally that's acted to keep them in a consolidation pattern. After I ...
Thu, Jun 13 2019, 5:04 PM
Monday and Tuesday were a bit nerve-racking as it looked like yields might break back above the pre-Mexico-tariff-threat gap in the 10yr yield chart. ...
Thu, Jun 13 2019, 4:30 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower for the 2nd straight day, which brings them back in line with Monday's levels. While these aren't quite the lowest rates of...
Thu, Jun 13 2019, 11:30 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its regular monthly estimates for new home sales on Thursday and also announced a new initiative to pr...
Thu, Jun 13 2019, 9:23 AM
In the day just past, bonds built on the Tuesday's strength following a correction to the weakest levels in more than a week. 10yr yields briefly mad...
Thu, Jun 13 2019, 8:49 AM
At the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs) are communic...
Thu, Jun 13 2019, 8:14 AM
Lenders are singing a happier tune when it comes to their profit margin outlook with those hopes driven by rising confidence in mortgage demand. The n...
Wed, Jun 12 2019, 4:28 PM
Yesterday morning saw bonds weaken enough to cause some small measure of panic among bond bulls. Said bulls had been nodding their heads all last wee...
Wed, Jun 12 2019, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher over the past 2 days, but managed to find their footing today. I'll be the last person to claim interest rates and stock p...
Wed, Jun 12 2019, 9:20 AM
In the day just past, bonds initially gave the impression that they were continuing to correct toward higher yields after weekend news of a trade "dea...
Wed, Jun 12 2019, 8:45 AM
In the tech world, the question of, “What is real, and what isn’t?” is becoming more of problem to determine than ever before. The latest is in re-pro...
Wed, Jun 12 2019, 8:13 AM
Mortgage access increased in May for the fifth consecutive month. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Mortgage Credit Availability Index (...
Wed, Jun 12 2019, 8:08 AM
Mortgage applications soared during the week ended June 7 as interest rates declined further. While applications for home purchases were up, it was re...
Tue, Jun 11 2019, 2:59 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher again today, even though underlying bond markets were relatively flat. This is due to the timing of market movement over t...
Tue, Jun 11 2019, 2:28 PM
The housing crisis put the spotlight, legal and otherwise, on the ways in which home purchases were financed. Financial difficulties weeded out many m...
Tue, Jun 11 2019, 8:30 AM
In the day just past, bonds traded to their highest yields in more than a week--something that hasn't been too common in the past few months. In fact...
Tue, Jun 11 2019, 8:17 AM
As I head to Kansas today, I have a great quote. Lenders I visit with are optimistic, raising margins to slow volume based on capacity constraints, an...
Mon, Jun 10 2019, 5:01 PM
Bad news for bonds today as Trump shelved the threat of tariffs on Mexico that helped fuel the sharpest leg of the recent rally 2 weeks ago. Perhaps...
Mon, Jun 10 2019, 4:39 PM
Mortgage rates had a fairly epic week last week, spending each day effectively pinned to the lowest levels since September 2017. That followed a swift...
Mon, Jun 10 2019, 10:18 AM
The increase in homeowner equity has slightly exceeded the pace of housing appreciation. CoreLogic says that the 63 percent of homeowners nationally w...
Mon, Jun 10 2019, 8:58 AM
In the week just past, bonds moved aggressively sideways at long-term yield lows after coming out of the gate strong on Monday. There were several n...
Mon, Jun 10 2019, 8:25 AM
This morning I find myself in Albany for the NYMBA conference and there is a lot of talk about the political situation, debt levels, and interest rate...
Fri, Jun 7 2019, 5:35 PM
The labor market has been the last bastion of defense against the various threats to the current economic expansion. Inflation may be intractable. ...
Fri, Jun 7 2019, 3:26 PM
Mortgage rates moved decisively lower today following a much weaker-than-expected reading on new job creation in a key report from the Department of L...
Fri, Jun 7 2019, 2:31 PM
Americans became decidedly more bullish about buying a home in May. Fannie Mae said its Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) nearly matched its survey...
Fri, Jun 7 2019, 9:43 AM
The War is over. That would be the bidding war. And maybe not over, but there seems to be a cease-fire. CoreLogic's Shu Chen says that the share of ho...
Fri, Jun 7 2019, 8:55 AM
Today is National Doughnut Day, but those in financial services are probably more interested in U.S. equities having their second-best day of the year...
Fri, Jun 7 2019, 8:25 AM
In the day just past, bonds managed to hold perfectly flat despite several big-ticket market movers in play. These included the European Central Ba...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 6:03 PM
In hindsight, it's been a boring week for bonds with each trading day falling mostly inside Monday's range and easily inside the 2-day range set by ...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 5:19 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move much today. That's been the theme for most lenders every day this week. Rarely has an absence of change been so awesome! Th...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 3:32 PM
The financial situation for mortgage lenders brightened considerably in the first quarter of this year, although profitability is way down from post-r...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 10:54 AM
Fannie Mae's monthly National Housing Survey consistently shows that the vast majority of Americans would prefer to own rather than rent a home but ar...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 10:31 AM
Here on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, recall that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” One could easily follow that with...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 8:58 AM
In the day just past, bonds maintained a range that fell almost perfectly inside the range from the previous day. The same was true of the previous...
Thu, Jun 6 2019, 8:25 AM
We can only guess at what the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) told members of the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) la...
Wed, Jun 5 2019, 5:00 PM
Yesterday was the first day of major selling that we've seen in more than a month in that 10yr yields moved up more than 5bps from the previous clos...
Wed, Jun 5 2019, 4:37 PM
Mortgage rates began the day very little changed versus yesterday's latest offerings. That meant another morning of access to the lowest rates since l...
Wed, Jun 5 2019, 9:14 AM
In the day just past, bonds put in their biggest day of weakness since mid-April on what looks to have been a purely technical correction. It was an ...
Wed, Jun 5 2019, 8:54 AM
I was walking by a classroom recently and I overhead the teacher telling the 1st graders, “Let’s work really hard today – your parents are eager for d...
