Fri, Dec 2 2016, 9:27 AM
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has now joined the Federal Housing Finance Agency in raising the dollar limits for loans that qualify for FHA...
Fri, Dec 2 2016, 9:24 AM
Plenty of people are on the roads in December, traveling for the holidays. Ever curious about the basic differences between a road, a street, a boulev...
Fri, Dec 2 2016, 8:12 AM
Have you heard the one about the falling knife? And how no one wants to catch it? That's one of the market's favorite analogies for the fear experie...
Fri, Dec 2 2016, 5:17 PM
Let's change up the old fairy tale. Bond markets have been cried wolf on a few recent occasions. In my version of the fairy tale, "crying wolf" is e...
Fri, Dec 2 2016, 4:19 PM
Mortgage rates erased yesterday's losses after today's jobs report, though not necessarily because of it. The Employment Situation (affectionately ref...
Thu, Dec 1 2016, 11:43 AM
Construction spending rose only slightly in October, with residential construction coming in stronger than most other sectors. The Census Bureau said ...
Thu, Dec 1 2016, 10:00 AM
Numbers can be deceiving. U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro announced that public housing developments in the U.S. will...
Thu, Dec 1 2016, 8:32 AM
Bond markets begin the day still reeling from yesterday's OPEC-driven rout. We noted in yesterday's closing commentary that yields bounced on an omin...
Thu, Dec 1 2016, 5:44 PM
Bonds began the day in the throes of yesterday's ongoing momentum. There was a bit of a pause during Asian market hours, but European trading quickly...
Thu, Dec 1 2016, 4:02 PM
Mortgage rates spiked abruptly today, bringing them to the highest levels in well over 2 years . The average lender is now quoting conventional 30yr f...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 10:37 AM
Pending home Sales eked out a 0.1 percent gain in October. The National Association of Realtors® said its Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) barely manag...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 10:07 AM
Underwriters’ hands are tied in using income from something the Federal Government considers illegal. For example, Washington State had nearly $212 mi...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 9:48 AM
Yesterday we discussed the positive impact of month-end bond buying. The only problem with month-end buying that occurs on the day before month-e...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 8:29 AM
Thanksgiving wreaked the usual holiday-related damage on the Mortgage Bankers Association's report of mortgage activity during the week ended November...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 5:18 PM
Today brought the long-awaited and hotly-anticipated conclusion of a deal among OPEC countries to limit oil production. Constricted supply has one in...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 4:07 PM
Mortgage rates rose moderately today, bringing them roughly back in line with Monday's levels. For the record, that leaves us in slightly better shape...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 1:35 PM
Interest rates are, quite naturally, the focus of Freddie Mac's November Outlook. The company's Economic & Housing Research Group looked at the potent...
Wed, Nov 30 2016, 1:25 PM
President-elect Donald J. Trump may have just handed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae a "get out of jail free" card. Trump has picked Steven Mnuchin to be S...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 10:54 AM
While it will remain unchanged in 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Reserve Board, and Office of the Comptroller of the C...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 10:16 AM
It took ten years and change, but national prices as measured by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Index have finally surpassed the previous pre...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 10:11 AM
From Louisiana comes, “I doubt that HUD will be a high priority for Trump – perhaps it will be like Ronald Reagan’s view. Remember the story that Pres...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 9:49 AM
The term ' pivot point ' can mean slightly different things depending on your frame of reference and market-watching goals. For our purposes, the lit...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 5:33 PM
How many ways could bond market weakness have been justified today? Shall I count the ways?
GDP +3.2 vs +3.0 forecast and +2.9 previously
...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 3:53 PM
Mortgage rate s continued lower today. While the pace of improvement was slightly slower, it was enough to get the average lender rate sheet back to l...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 1:50 PM
Freddie Mac has certified six companies as meeting its requirements for creating, signing, and storing eNotes , i.e. electronic promissory notes. The ...
Tue, Nov 29 2016, 1:42 PM
The national foreclosure inventory rate, according to Black Knight Financial Services, fell below 1 percent in October for the first time since July 2...
Mon, Nov 28 2016, 11:09 AM
Black Knight Financial Services says that its Home Price Index (HPI) inched up only 0.1 percent from August to September. Monthly appreciation has dec...
Mon, Nov 28 2016, 9:54 AM
Happy birthday to Tina Turner who turned 77 on Saturday. (I doubt if her personal information is at risk after HUD was hacked .) I bet Tina, who is a ...
Mon, Nov 28 2016, 4:51 PM
Remember when 10yr yields spiked from roughly 2.31% to roughly 2.41% in the blink of an eye last Wednesday? That was the day before Thanksgiving, w...
Mon, Nov 28 2016, 3:54 PM
Bond markets were stronger right out of the gate in the overnight session with 10yr yields opening at 2.337 and gaining another bp since then. The re...
Mon, Nov 28 2016, 3:40 PM
WARNING: this article's headline makes the overall mortgage rate situation sound much better than it actually is . While it is indeed a fact that toda...
Fri, Nov 25 2016, 10:40 AM
CoreLogic says it is now able to closely track household mobility through various data sets including property taxes and sales transactions. Some coun...
Fri, Nov 25 2016, 10:22 AM
Few days of the year can be more frustrating to bond market stakeholders who find themselves compelled (either by themselves or their superiors) to ...
Fri, Nov 25 2016, 4:44 PM
As was the goal of most anyone involved in trading bonds, today was completely inconsequential. Recapping the action is a mere formality (indeed, for...
Fri, Nov 25 2016, 4:23 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged-to-slightly-higher today, depending on the lender. Most lenders put out rate sheets in fairly conservative territory on ...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 10:52 AM
House prices increases moderated slightly compared to the pace set in August, but the Federal Housing Finance Index (FHFA) said the month-over-month g...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 10:49 AM
New home sales failed to build on their September momentum, although the October downturn was not a large one. The Census Bureau and the Department of...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 10:22 AM
My cat Myrtle is old school. A traditionalist. Even though she has never said it out loud, I know that she doesn’t approve of me putting one space aft...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 9:52 AM
Purchase mortgage application activity picked up significantly during the week ended November 18. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Com...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 9:18 AM
Bond markets begin the day on the run (the bad kind of run), and if Thanksgivings past are any indication, things could get worse before they get bett...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 5:37 PM
The sense of illiquidity was palpable today. This began in the overnight session when comments from the European Central Bank sent European bond yiel...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 4:36 PM
Mortgage rates move abruptly higher today, bringing the average lender very close to the highest levels in more than 2 years. As it stands, rates are ...
Wed, Nov 23 2016, 3:47 PM
After leaving them in a holding pattern for 10 long years the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has raised conforming loan limits for mortgages ac...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 11:27 AM
October existing home sales added to September's rebound, rising to the highest annualized pace in nearly a decade . The National Association of Realt...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 9:53 AM
Another day, another settlement. Ally Financial Inc said it agreed to pay $52 million to settle claims made by the U.S. Department of Justice against ...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 9:48 AM
Bond markets have quickly "repriced" their expectations for future inflation and growth based on the potential policy path of the Trump administration...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 6:36 PM
Remember overseas bond markets? It would be easy to forget about the typical influence from Asian and European bond markets on US bond markets over t...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 5:16 PM
Mortgage rates stayed mostly steady today, on average. For the record, that means some lenders were in slightly better shape versus yesterday's latest...
Tue, Nov 22 2016, 3:06 PM
All-cash sales represented 31.1 of the total home sales recorded in August, according to a CoreLogic report on cash and distressed home sales. This wa...
Mon, Nov 21 2016, 12:26 PM
The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance recently held a hearing on " Modernizing Appraisals : A Regulatory Review and the F...
