Thu, Nov 8 2018, 4:36 PM
Mortgage rates moved back up today, leaving them right in line with the highest levels of the week. These also happen to be the highest levels since e...
Thu, Nov 8 2018, 2:43 PM
Housing affordability crept down again in the third quarter of 2018 reaching, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a ten-yea...
Thu, Nov 8 2018, 2:13 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August September indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen an...
Thu, Nov 8 2018, 11:58 AM
A deep dig into recent home purchase loans shows that some of the underwriting standards employed by FHA and the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) eas...
Thu, Nov 8 2018, 9:11 AM
I'm going to talk about the potential for a friendly bounce in bonds today. I want to be clear right up front that I'm presenting this as one of two ...
Thu, Nov 8 2018, 9:07 AM
“Rob, we just went through our third staff reduction. Have you heard of any vendors that work on forecasting or doing ‘what if’ scenarios for lenders ...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 5:05 PM
Those who expected the election to matter to bond markets got their way overnight. Those who expected elections to be inconsequential got their way...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 4:52 PM
Mortgage rates were slightly lower today. Unfortunately, that may not be the case by tomorrow morning. Underlying bond markets (which dictate rates) l...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 12:13 PM
Despite the success of the U.S. economy as of late, housing sentiment seems to have hit a rough patch . Fannie Mae said its Home Purchase Sentiment In...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 9:05 AM
Whether you thought the election would or would not matter for the bond market, you were right! At times, it mattered quite a bit in the overnight ...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 9:03 AM
Lenders outside of Ohio were mildly interested in the Ohio Governor’s race where Ex-CFPB chief Richard Cordray lost. As forecast Democrats won the Hou...
Wed, Nov 7 2018, 8:14 AM
The week ended November 2 was another week of retreat for mortgage applications as the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Market Composite Index d...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 5:37 PM
While we can point to tonight's election results on the calendar, and imagine that they'll have an impact on financial markets, stocks and bonds sim...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 5:03 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move much today. A few lenders were microscopically stronger or weaker, and the average lender was perfectly unchanged. That's f...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 11:32 AM
The ease of access to mortgage credit rose in October according to the Mortgage Credit Availability Index. An increase in the Index, a product of the ...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 9:02 AM
“I can’t believe my grandpa is voting Democrat this year…he would have never done that when he was alive.” (Or Republican – your choice.) Things aren’...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 8:52 AM
Justified or not, midterm elections are the market mover du jour. Midterm elections happen today, so it's fair to wonder if they will be a market mov...
Tue, Nov 6 2018, 8:16 AM
Cash-out refinancing is currently a larger share of the refinance market than at any time since the financial crisis . However, the Urban Institute (U...
Mon, Nov 5 2018, 5:19 PM
Today had the look and feel of a summertime Monday--the first we've seen since--well...summertime! Volume was much lighter than it has been in week...
Mon, Nov 5 2018, 4:02 PM
Mortgage rates continued pushing up to new 7-year highs today, even if only by a small margin. This is notable because the underlying bond market (the...
Mon, Nov 5 2018, 9:11 AM
Remember the delinquency and foreclosure issues we had several years ago? It is still part of the biz. Hubzu, an online marketing platform, released d...
Mon, Nov 5 2018, 8:58 AM
Bonds had a rough week last week, more than fully erasing the rally they enjoyed as stocks sold-off in the previous week. Today's first chart shows t...
Mon, Nov 5 2018, 8:24 AM
By mid-October the average interest rate for 30-year fixed rate mortgages (which at that point was at 4.85 percent) represented an increase of 85 basi...
Fri, Nov 2 2018, 7:29 PM
Today, and indeed the week in general was fairly straightforward as far as bond markets were concerned. Today brought a fairly well anticipated jobs ...
Fri, Nov 2 2018, 6:25 PM
Mortgage rates had a bad week and an especially bad day following a much stronger-than-expected jobs report. The Employment Situation (the most import...
Fri, Nov 2 2018, 10:12 AM
Both of the two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which remain in government receivership ten years after the housin...
Fri, Nov 2 2018, 9:15 AM
Many states “gain an hour” Sunday morning by setting clocks back. Robots don’t care what time it is - will they build your next house? Companies like ...
Fri, Nov 2 2018, 8:26 AM
This morning brings the often-important jobs report. Traditionally, the key component has been nonfarm payrolls (NFP), which is just a tally of new j...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 4:54 PM
Today ended up being somewhat triumphant for bonds. It didn't begin that way, however. Yields were higher overnight and moved up just a bit more in ...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 4:12 PM
It's Thursday! That means it's time, once again, to set the record straight on today's actual mortgage rates as opposed to those suggested by almost a...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 1:24 PM
Construction spending in September was largely unchanged from where it was in August. The U.S. Census Bureau said that private and public sector spend...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 11:23 AM
Single family home prices increased during the third quarter of 2018 in 93 percent or 166 of the 178 metropolitan areas tracked by the National Associ...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 9:02 AM
For me October included time in Washington (State and DC), California, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nevada. Lenders are talking about technology, th...
Thu, Nov 1 2018, 8:37 AM
Bonds have either trying to position themselves in a relatively defensive, pessimistic stance heading into upcoming key events, or their staging on ...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 4:19 PM
While they are talking apples and oranges, both the U.S. Census Bureau and ATTOM Data Solutions each took a recent look at residential vacancies . The...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 4:13 PM
Bonds ended the day in weaker territory with 10yr yields rising roughly 3bps and Fannie 4.0 MBS losing nearly a quarter of a point.
Much like yester...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 3:29 PM
Mortgage rates were higher by a fairly small margin once again today. Interest rates in general (which are determined by the bond market) have been ta...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 9:18 AM
The title of this commentary is not a Halloween pun . I don't do Halloween puns anymore. No, there is some legitimate cause for concern--even a bit...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 9:00 AM
“The best part about Halloween is that the cobwebs in my house look like decorations.” For perhaps a morning, the focus for lenders has shifted away f...
Wed, Oct 31 2018, 8:10 AM
After posting the first across-the-board volume increases in almost a month during the week ended October 19, activity reversed last week, and the sea...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 4:07 PM
Freddie Mac is forecasting that there will be GDP growth of 3.0 percent in the second quarter of this year, moderating from the strong 4.2 percent gro...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 4:04 PM
If there's a theme in the bond market over the past 2 days, it's that we've broken away from the previously fairly rigid correlation with stocks. Tha...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 3:05 PM
Mortgage rates were moderately higher today as underlying bond markets continued backing away from their strongest levels in more than 3 weeks (strong...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 10:53 AM
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index for August showed an annual appreciation rate that was lower than 6.0 percent for the fi...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 9:07 AM
Plenty of vendors and lenders are focused on raising capital, merging, selling, or closing. It doesn’t take a brilliant detective to see the liquidity...
Tue, Oct 30 2018, 8:45 AM
With bonds being flat to slightly weaker yesterday and now noticeably weaker overnight, we may be looking at our first real resistance bounce (aka "fl...
Mon, Oct 29 2018, 5:00 PM
The bond market has seen one too many "stay thirsty" memes. For example, "I don't always rally for more than a few days in a rising rate environmen...
Mon, Oct 29 2018, 4:22 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move today, despite a fair amount of underlying market volatility. Rates are able to weather the sorts of storms you hear about ...
Mon, Oct 29 2018, 1:29 PM
The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) says its 2018 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers confirms that student debt balances are an increasing con...
Mon, Oct 29 2018, 10:04 AM
Core global bond markets--led by German Bunds and US Treasuries--have been trending lower fairly reliably. For European bonds, that rally has occupie...
