Mon, Aug 1 2016, 9:14 AM
Have you ever heard of the AARMR? I know – as if this industry needs yet another acronym. Pronounced by those “in the know” as “armor,” it is the Amer...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 8:59 AM
Back in 2015--almost exactly a year ago, actually--the order of the day was determining the timing of the Fed's first rate hike since the financial cr...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 7:01 PM
We were already defensive, to some extent, about the possibility that last Friday's gains were driven by month-end trading needs. Indeed, there was a...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 5:51 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today after hitting the lowest levels in roughly 2 weeks last Friday. Today's increase was fairly minimal in the big ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 12:44 PM
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is
proposing changes to its Know Before You Owe Mortgage Disclosure Act, usually
referred to in the ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 10:28 AM
"Buy land - they're not
making any more of it." And the reverse is happening in Louisiana. Say what you
want about global warming, or inappropriate ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 9:28 AM
Homeownership rates, which have been declining since
the end of the housing boom, hit an a ll-time low in the second quarter of
2016 . The rate at ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 8:39 AM
With 10yr yields up only 2.2bps to begin the day and MBS down only 2 ticks, it's interesting to note that initial reaction to the overnight policy ann...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 4:46 PM
Heading into the close at much stronger levels this afternoon, it would be easy to overlook the fact that bond markets were weaker overnight (followin...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 4:15 PM
Mortgage rates enjoyed another strong day, falling to the best levels in exactly 2 weeks. Rates were actually set to move higher early this morni...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 9:44 AM
I don’t know how it is that we only have two business days left in July – time flies. For me this month has included Honolulu, Denver, Sacramento, San...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 9:06 AM
One tricky thing about technical analysis (things like moving averages and other mathematical formulas applied to charts in order to get them to cough...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 4:59 PM
Cash sales continued to account for a significant
portion of all home sales in April.
CoreLogic said on Wednesday that 31.6 percent of home sales t...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 4:57 PM
In the bigger picture, today was all about confirming and consolidating yesterday's gains. Trading levels held inside narrow ranges for both MBS an...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates fell at the quickest pace in more than a month today as lenders priced-in the market improvements seen after yesterday's Fed Announ...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 10:39 AM
Pending home sales eked out, although only barely, an
increase in June after a falling by an unexpectedly large percentage in
May. The National Ass...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:59 AM
Fannie Mae has made changes to its HomeReady
mortgage program that allows borrowers to obtain a mortgage with as little as a
3 percent downpayment...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:57 AM
The statistics are no surprise. The Urban Institute says for every 100
extremely low income households there are only 29 adequate, affordable, a...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:51 AM
One of the biggest challenges faced by business owners today is attracting and retaining great people. Millennials and those with diverse ethnic backg...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:22 AM
Mortgage
applications took a significant downturn during the week ended July 22 as
mortgage rates moved off of historic lows.
The Mortgage Banke...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:21 AM
First thing's first: "consolidation" refers to a pronounced narrowing of a trading range after an uptrend or downtrend. Consolidations can occur with...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 4:49 PM
Dovish vs Hawkish: This refers to how accommodative the Fed's policy stance might be. Have you ever seen a hawk stare down its prey? That's how a ...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly lower today, although that's only true for lenders who issued mid-day improvements following the Fed's policy announ...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 2:01 PM
(additions underlined, deletions struck-through)
For immediate release
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in Apri...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 11:39 AM
Foreclosure starts rose in June for the second month in a row but Black Knight Financial Services, in its "first look" at the month's mortgage perfo...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 10:43 AM
The newly named S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices noted a continued rise in prices across the country although some monthly indices declined . Th...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 10:37 AM
Sales of newly constructed homes posted a gain in June, rising 3.5 percent from the May estimate. The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 9:13 AM
The capital markets are always changing, and the latest news to turn some heads is that JPMorgan Chase is streamlining its operations and will no lon...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 9:03 AM
Smart stakeholders in financial markets tend to avoid assuming or asserting that particular trading levels WILL behave in a particular way. There are...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 6:26 PM
Last week saw the yields increasingly hold inside the "new narrow" range between 1.54 and 1.59. Frankly, I felt like it was a long shot for that ra...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 4:58 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher today, and are now effectively at the highest levels in month. That sounds a bit more dire than it is, thoug...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 10:59 AM
A strong market in the Mountain West drove U.S. home
prices up 1.1 percent in May. The Black
Knight Home Price Index (HPI) put Idaho , Utah , a...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 9:47 AM
Every day we have news coming out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some of the news is attempts at changing the structure of the two – being under gover...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 9:09 AM
Bond markets begin another week in the same sideways range, still waiting for the same events to suggest the next concerted effort to take yields hi...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 4:30 PM
Bond markets did nothing wrong today. There was a bit of red on trade screens (indicating modestly higher yields in Treasuries and lower MBS prices...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 4:08 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged again today, making three out of the past 4 days where rates haven't budged and 6 out of the past 7 days where rates...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 11:24 AM
Fannie Mae's economists have upgraded projections for economic growth in the second quarter to by 0.3 percent to 2.4 percent because of unexpectedly s...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 11:19 AM
Every month the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development issues statistics on residential construction - permits authorized, ...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 11:03 AM
All the housing statistics this week made my head spin. How good would you be at building your own house? Here’s a short 10 question quiz that will ...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 9:05 AM
If bond-trading aliens scanned the universe for signs of life and happened upon planet earth this week, they probably wouldn't even send an imperial p...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 5:32 PM
Bond markets had yet another uneventful day with yet another close inside the same old range that's dominated the entire week (with one brief exceptio...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 3:51 PM
Mortgage rates didn't budge , compared to yesterday's, which leaves them in line with their highest levels since late June. A small majority lende...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 11:03 AM
Sales of existing homes increased in June for the fourth consecutive month . The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said it was encouraged to s...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 10:48 AM
Prices increased by 0.2 percent from April to May on a seasonally adjusted basis according to figures released today by the Federal Housing Finance Ag...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 10:44 AM
While it's a bit of retrospective considering the drop in rates brought on by the Brexit news late in the month, the share of purchase originations h...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 10:39 AM
Happy 6th year-old-birthday to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Or is it the CFPB’s 5th “birthday”? For those new to the...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 8:49 AM
With slight weakness overnight, bonds begin the domestic trading session with their backs against the wall, yet again. The "wall" in this case could ...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 5:51 PM
Any time we watch a sideways range rates with fairly clear technical boundaries, it's only natural to hope that the upper boundary will hold up in the...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 4:59 PM
For most lenders, you'd have to go back to late June in order to see mortgage rates any higher than they were today, although several lenders d...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 1:04 PM
Oh those Baby Boomers. Even as they age they don't retire, at least not from the public stage. This week those over age 55 were the subject of Fredd...
