Wed, Mar 20 2019, 11:52 AM
Forecasts of slowing economic growth have been the norm for some time, but it is easy to sense greater confidence lately among those making them. Fann...
Wed, Mar 20 2019, 9:22 AM
Why do us capital markets folks seem to speak a different language? To better understand what secondary marketing folks deal with every day, here’s a ...
Wed, Mar 20 2019, 8:45 AM
Today's only key event will be the Fed Announcement , which is actually 3 events in 1. At 2pm, we'll get the policy announcement itself as well as t...
Wed, Mar 20 2019, 8:30 AM
One problem solved? Perhaps, but there are always others waiting in line. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) asks its new home builder m...
Wed, Mar 20 2019, 8:18 AM
Mortgage rates continued to slide during the week ended March 15 and the volume of mortgage application activity picked up in response. The Mortgage B...
Tue, Mar 19 2019, 4:17 PM
Bonds began the day in weaker territory following overnight headlines suggesting European leaders would be going up to bat for a compromise Brexit d...
Tue, Mar 19 2019, 3:48 PM
Mortgage rates were flat for the 4th day in a row today in a sign that investors have largely taken their seats for tomorrow's big show. The Fed will ...
Tue, Mar 19 2019, 11:59 AM
Although lacking in popularity, it appears that automated appraisals have obtained their intended results. Urban Institute (UI) researchers Laurie Goo...
Tue, Mar 19 2019, 9:36 AM
Rates staged an impressive rally in November and December before bottoming out on the first trading day of 2019. The bounce was fairly abrupt at th...
Tue, Mar 19 2019, 8:51 AM
At roughly $8,500 per loan and continuing to defy gravity, scholars disagree on whether vendors lower the cost of originating a residential loan. But ...
Mon, Mar 18 2019, 5:02 PM
For the bond market St Paddy's day was a 2 week celebration of "green" (as in the color of price gains or falling yields on trading terminals) beginni...
Mon, Mar 18 2019, 4:30 PM
Mortgage rates didn't budge today--a logical result with no signs of life in underlying bond markets. In the current case, this is just fine with us c...
Mon, Mar 18 2019, 10:47 AM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) held steady in March , after partially recovering from substan...
Mon, Mar 18 2019, 9:18 AM
This week's economic calendar is exceptionally light, with no true top-tier reports. Even the 2nd-tier data is limited with Philly Fed on Thursday an...
Mon, Mar 18 2019, 8:30 AM
I hope that I never get to the point of writing things down on my “to do” list even after I’ve done them, just so I can cross them off the list. Or en...
Fri, Mar 15 2019, 7:39 PM
Uncertainty has reigned supreme for much of 2019 as traders weigh shifting economic data, potential data inconsistencies (due the shutdown), trade pol...
Fri, Mar 15 2019, 3:49 PM
Mortgage rates remained at recent lows today, as underlying bond markets strengthened. For US Treasuries, this brought rates to new multi-month lows. ...
Fri, Mar 15 2019, 2:04 PM
Nearly 80 percent of America's housing stock is at least 20 years old and twice that share of homes were built 50 or more years ago. With new construc...
Fri, Mar 15 2019, 9:22 AM
People who write articles every day love holidays and other dates that offer some reprieve from the need to be creative when it comes to writing headl...
Fri, Mar 15 2019, 8:55 AM
I didn’t know that America has a “most hated” type of home loan until Bloomberg “informed” me that reverse mortgages are… hated. Hated? Couldn’t the a...
Fri, Mar 15 2019, 8:12 AM
Even though the January Census Bureau report on new home sales published on Thursday wasn't all that encouraging for the spring market, the Mortgage B...
Thu, Mar 14 2019, 5:14 PM
In the bigger picture, we'll look back at today's intraday trading range and it will be completely meaningless--among the narrower days of 1st quarter...
Thu, Mar 14 2019, 4:41 PM
Mortgage rates held steady today, despite moderate weakness in underlying bond markets. This occurred for two reasons. First, yesterday saw bond marke...
Thu, Mar 14 2019, 10:57 AM
It seems like only yesterday that we were looking at the December new home sale numbers - well actually it was 6 days ago. Now we have the January sal...
Thu, Mar 14 2019, 9:56 AM
Top line, bottom line: Brexit is a big deal. Without the Brexit referendum in mid-2016, US bond yields never would have revisited all-time lows. It'...
Thu, Mar 14 2019, 9:00 AM
Happy pi day, 3.14… Did you hear about the three statisticians that went out hunting? They spotted a rabbit. The first shot too high. The second shot ...
Thu, Mar 14 2019, 8:11 AM
Folks who follow real estate might be getting a little nervous. Since that category includes almost everyone who owns a home, wants to own a home, or ...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 5:05 PM
For the most part, today was marked by the same sort of resilience seen on several recent occasions where bond yields have either held steady or fall...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 4:42 PM
Mortgage rates were officially lower today, despite some weakness in the bond market. In general, bond market weakness coincides with rates moving hig...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 12:25 PM
While still far from buoyant, mortgage lenders were a little more upbeat about their expected profit margins and the demand outlook for both purchase ...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 12:13 PM
Construction spending in ticked up in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.280 trillion according to data released by the Census Bureau ...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 9:52 AM
Yesterday saw bonds tag their best levels since early January (Jan 3rd was the only day in over a year where yields closed any lower) on a combination...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 9:12 AM
Builders, appraisers, & real estate agents love to talk about square feet. Houses are becoming larger as households have become smaller. Right now, th...
Wed, Mar 13 2019, 8:19 AM
Overall mortgage application activity resumed an upward trend last week, with another strong showing for purchase volume. The Mortgage Bankers Associa...
Tue, Mar 12 2019, 4:18 PM
There were three salient market movers for the bond market today with one of them being a 2-parter.
First up was Brexit news in the overnight sess...
Tue, Mar 12 2019, 3:52 PM
Mortgage rates dropped convincingly today, bringing them to new long-term lows. The average lender hasn't offered anything lower for more than a year ...
Tue, Mar 12 2019, 1:32 PM
Increasing home prices have the additional benefit of reducing mortgage foreclosures according to CoreLogic. The company's Loan Performance Insights r...
Tue, Mar 12 2019, 10:33 AM
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) have each issued birth announcements for their long-anticipated Uniform Mortgage-Backed Securities (UMBS). The t...
Tue, Mar 12 2019, 9:48 AM
Just as yesterday's domestic trading hours ended, British Prime Minister Theresa May met with EU leaders to try to tweak the Brexit proposal enough to...
Tue, Mar 12 2019, 8:41 AM
This morning I’m feeling old after a 3AM wake up call to travel from Ellie Mae’s conference in San Francisco to the MBAKY in Louisville. (Speaking of ...
Mon, Mar 11 2019, 4:38 PM
Today brought the Retail Sales report, which was responsible for a fairly big reaction the last time it came out. This time around, the reaction was ...
Mon, Mar 11 2019, 3:59 PM
Mortgage rates were roughly unchanged to begin the week. That means they are staying in line with the lowest levels in more than a year. Only 2 or 3 d...
Mon, Mar 11 2019, 9:48 AM
Stop me if you've heard this one before. There's this range in early 2019... It was consolidating. Then it broke. Now it's sideways.
Unless you'...
Mon, Mar 11 2019, 8:52 AM
How do you pay your bills? (Do you pay your bills?) Cash? Check? Automatic debit? There is a myriad of ways that borrowers remit their mortgage paymen...
Fri, Mar 8 2019, 4:14 PM
From bumpy ride to smooth sailing: bonds gained more ground this week than they lost during last week's range-breaking sell-off. I firmly believe tha...
Fri, Mar 8 2019, 3:50 PM
Yesterday, we talked about how mortgage rates were actually lower this week, despite some news coverage to the contrary, and how that discrepancy was ...
Fri, Mar 8 2019, 12:35 PM
Permits rose in January, but the headline for the delayed residential construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing an...
Fri, Mar 8 2019, 10:48 AM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has taken a look at the differences between homes constructed within metropolitan statistical areas (...
Fri, Mar 8 2019, 9:35 AM
Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. In today's case, the fiction is the fairly logical story most traders would write in their minds. That sto...
Fri, Mar 8 2019, 9:04 AM
Catsup or Ketchup? Language is fascinating. The mortgage biz is filled with acronyms, and the last time I counted there were over 850 commonly used ab...
