Thu, Jul 5 2018, 5:22 PM
Fannie Mae's Lender Sentiment Survey has foreshadowed the growing attention to automating the loan approval process. That survey underlined the extent...
Thu, Jul 5 2018, 4:26 PM
Mortgage rates were sideways to slightly higher today as financial markets returned for the final 2 days of the holiday-shortened week. Trade war anxi...
Thu, Jul 5 2018, 9:27 AM
Heading into the day and a half holiday break, bonds had been consolidating in a narrower range centered on 2.85% in terms of 10yr yields. Now, as bo...
Thu, Jul 5 2018, 9:00 AM
Basketball folks have been talking about 33-year old LeBron James signing a four-year, $154 million deal with the Lakers. I don’t know the intricacies...
Thu, Jul 5 2018, 8:33 AM
In spite of a slight uptick in purchase activity, the overall pace of mortgage applications fell again during the week ended June 29. The Mortgage Ban...
Tue, Jul 3 2018, 2:49 PM
Millennials, it is said, are finally moving out on their own, establishing households and buying houses. But, if new research from the National Associ...
Tue, Jul 3 2018, 2:39 PM
Yesterday's headline was "strong start; weak finish." Today's is the opposite (obviously). In both cases, geopolitical issues played a role in ove...
Tue, Jul 3 2018, 1:55 PM
Mortgage rates ended the day roughly in line with yesterday's on average. That said, there's a wider-than-normal gap between lenders depending on seve...
Tue, Jul 3 2018, 11:24 AM
A sure sign that a topic has progressed beyond trending and is now “trended” is when its acronym has firmly replaced the actual name. Artificial intel...
Tue, Jul 3 2018, 9:05 AM
If bond markets had a nice month-end buying spree at the end of June, it happened on the 27th. The next two days saw moderate weakness . Yesterday'...
Tue, Jul 3 2018, 8:52 AM
While the Northeast swelters and California burns, remember that on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, s...
Mon, Jul 2 2018, 5:33 PM
Bonds started out in stronger territory today, thanks to geopolitical risks stemming from European immigration issues. When domestic traders got in f...
Mon, Jul 2 2018, 5:09 PM
Mortgage rates began the day in decent shape relative to last week. The average lender's rate/fee combo was at least as low as it had been on Friday. ...
Mon, Jul 2 2018, 11:15 AM
Construction spending was less robust than April's 1.8 percent gain, but the May numbers came in about where the experts expected them. The Census Bur...
Mon, Jul 2 2018, 10:05 AM
The 4th of July, like a handful of other bond market holidays, doesn't care what day of week the 4th falls on. That makes it one of the very times ea...
Mon, Jul 2 2018, 8:49 AM
I don’t think that my cat Myrtle has been asked any survey questions by any pollsters. (If she has, she hasn’t mentioned it, and if she was, I know ex...
Fri, Jun 29 2018, 6:49 PM
On 2 occasions this week, bonds set closing yield lows for the month. Moreover, if we strike the craziest day from late May from the record (since It...
Fri, Jun 29 2018, 5:57 PM
Mortgage rates haven't moved for 3 straight days now. In fact, if you're not too concerned with minutia, there hasn't been any major movement in weeks...
Fri, Jun 29 2018, 1:40 PM
A current post in Freddie Mac's Insight blog looks again at the decline in homeownership among young adults and tries to determine the role played by ...
Fri, Jun 29 2018, 9:51 AM
With each passing day this week, bonds do more to prove that the low yields achieved during the Italian panic were more than the mere byproduct of a s...
Fri, Jun 29 2018, 8:50 AM
Here’s something that’s kind of interesting. Half of all zero net energy homes have been built in California . “Cali,” a nickname despised by resident...
Fri, Jun 29 2018, 8:38 AM
Housing inventory shortages, lack of new construction, and the not-unrelated issues of rising prices and falling measures of affordability have been m...
Thu, Jun 28 2018, 5:12 PM
Referring to today as "modestly" weaker is a debatable choice. On the one hand, trading levels hit the 3pm close in modestly weaker territory. No ar...
Thu, Jun 28 2018, 4:43 PM
Mortgage rates haven't been too interested in making big moves recently. Today was no exception. In fact, most lenders' rate quotes would be indiscern...
Thu, Jun 28 2018, 10:40 AM
Persons who buy or refinance a condominium using a Freddie Mac mortgage may soon be able to skip having a traditional on-the-ground appraisal. The com...
Thu, Jun 28 2018, 8:57 AM
Ever wonder where manufactured houses are centered? Here’s a nifty map . They are being touted as a possible solution to the nation’s housing shortage...
Thu, Jun 28 2018, 8:09 AM
Ben Carson, MD, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) told the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday that his d...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 4:49 PM
The last time trading levels in bond markets were this strong at the close of business, it was on the most dire day of the Italian political drama--th...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 4:01 PM
Mortgage rates finally fell today after remaining flat for the last 3 business days. There are a few possible explanations for the friendly move, but ...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 10:21 AM
The number of new contracts for existing home sales barely made it onto the bottom rung of analysts' expectations in May. The National Association of ...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 9:35 AM
Monty Python isn't for everyone, but the old TV series is chock full of life lessons and random knowledge that really helps round out one's trivia pro...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 9:06 AM
Freddie Mac reported today that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 6.3 percent in May. The portfolio balance at the end o...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 9:01 AM
Today is the last day for the Supreme Court session, and the rumor is that Justice Anthony Kennedy will soon announce his retirement from the $250k/ye...
Wed, Jun 27 2018, 8:10 AM
The sharp uptick in mortgage applications during the week ended June 15 was short lived. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a strong reve...
Tue, Jun 26 2018, 5:16 PM
Multifamily and commercial mortgage debt grew by $44.3 billion in the first quarter of 2018, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 1.4 percent, and the l...
Tue, Jun 26 2018, 5:11 PM
Bonds traded almost exactly the same range as they did yesterday. This time around, volumes were 33% lower, bringing them in line with recent lows ...
Tue, Jun 26 2018, 4:27 PM
Mortgage rates were flat for the 3rd straight day today, keeping them in a holding pattern just slightly below the highest levels in years. This has b...
Tue, Jun 26 2018, 10:17 AM
The producers of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price indices injected a dose of reality into their report for April. David M. Blitzer Managing D...
Tue, Jun 26 2018, 9:56 AM
Technical analysis is an important ingredient in most market-watching recipes--at least when it comes to those who are compelled to watch markets most...
Tue, Jun 26 2018, 9:02 AM
The interest rate environment is like the weather: we all talk about it, but no one can do anything about it. Lenders have certainly noticed that sinc...
Mon, Jun 25 2018, 4:53 PM
So much for the stock lever! Though, to be fair to conventional wisdom , falling stock prices definitely did help bond yields move lower this mornin...
Mon, Jun 25 2018, 4:33 PM
Conventional wisdom holds that interest rates tend to move in the same direction as stocks. This makes logical sense from a classical investment portf...
Mon, Jun 25 2018, 2:50 PM
There was plenty of foreshadowing, but Fannie Mae's Chief Economist Doug Duncan said last week that cost-cutting has risen as a priority for mortgage ...
Mon, Jun 25 2018, 10:43 AM
The sales of new homes surged in May, outpacing the consensus of expectations, and while one months' data is just that, both median and average home p...
Mon, Jun 25 2018, 9:26 AM
Experienced loan officers know that much of their success is a number’s game: W number of cold calls result in X number of potential leads, X number o...
Mon, Jun 25 2018, 9:14 AM
Most financial metrics are almost always either MOVING or CONSOLIDATING . Those are pretty broad terms--especially when it comes to watching the m...
Fri, Jun 22 2018, 7:24 PM
Monday was the slowest day of the year in terms of volume. Volatility was also very muted by the time US markets fired up for the day. But here come...
Fri, Jun 22 2018, 6:50 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher today. Yet again, underlying bond markets suggested another fate. In other words, if mortgage rates were perfectl...
Fri, Jun 22 2018, 12:33 PM
In back-to-back blog posts in the National Association of Home Builder's (NAHB's) Eye on Housing Blog , Paul Emrath details both the extent of the cur...
Fri, Jun 22 2018, 10:20 AM
The Trump Administration formally rolled out a plan on Tuesday to massively reorganize the federal government . The proposal is largely the work of Of...
