Wed, Sep 23 2015, 4:37 PM
During all but the first few hours of the overnight session, US bond markets were under pressure today. It wasn't too terrible though. The initial m...
Wed, Sep 23 2015, 3:03 PM
Mortgage rates held their ground fairly well today, despite moderate weakness in underlying bond markets (which normally translates to higher rate...
Wed, Sep 23 2015, 2:26 PM
Twenty-nine states and the District of
Columbia have now moved within their own range of stable housing activity
according to Freddie Mac's Multi-...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 10:59 AM
The "dazzling changes" in the mortgage market over
the last decade were the topic of address last week by Richard Cordray to the
National Associatio...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 10:55 AM
This
morning I am in Detroit, which has seen its share of population
movement. The Census Bureau has released statistics for movers between
met...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 10:39 AM
Home prices made an unexpected surge in July the Federal
Housing Finance Agency said today. The month-over-month change was +0.6 percent
while, acco...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 7:33 AM
To be sure, with mortgage rates where they are, 'sideways' isn't necessarily such a bad thing. From a market-watching perspective, however, we're qui...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 4:35 PM
European market levels and the global market considerations inspired by news out of Europe served as the driving forces behind much of today's bond ...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 3:49 PM
Mortgage rates got back on track today after giving up a fair amount of last week's gains yesterday. Most lenders are very close to Friday aftern...
Tue, Sep 22 2015, 1:35 PM
The overnight momentum, fueled by global risk-aversion, has only gathered steam in the domestic session. After the first half of the day, Treasuries ...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 11:20 AM
Even as the market share of first-time
buyers continued to inch up, overall sales of existing homes declined in
August. The National Association of...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 10:01 AM
We've
only just begun... Excellus BlueCross BlueShield reports cyber attackers
have hacked its systems and that 10 million people have been affec...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 7:33 AM
With all the build-up to last week's FOMC Announcement, and the fairly fast-paced market movement that followed, what will we do now for excitement? ...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 5:49 PM
If it seems like corporate debt has been an increasingly hot topic for me/us over the past few years, that's because it has been. 2014 was a record ...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 5:07 PM
Mortgage rates couldn't maintain last week's impressive move lower following the Fed Announcement. At the time, rates were moving lower for ECONO...
Mon, Sep 21 2015, 2:21 PM
It was a rough morning for bond markets as Treasuries have really only moved in one direction since opening in Europe . Losses were quite livable dur...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 12:06 PM
Foreclosure activity in the U.S.
declined on a year-over-year basis for the first time in six months. RealtyTrac said today that there were a tota...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 10:58 AM
"Recent
global economic and financial developments may restrain economic
activity somewhat and are likely to put further downward pressure on
in...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 10:47 AM
If we wanted to do as little as possible to overcomplicate yesterday's Fed news, we might focus on the fact that the Fed took their greatest strides y...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 7:32 AM
What just happened?
The Fed did some justice to the notion that they would talk tougher about an October or December rate hike if they didn't hike...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 5:42 PM
Today gave markets a chance to continue reflecting on the realities of yesterday's FOMC Announcement. The Fed broke new ground by including the globa...
Fri, Sep 18 2015, 2:50 PM
Mortgage rates continued a strong move lower today as momentum continued following yesterday's Fed Announcement. While the Fed doesn't dictate mo...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 12:39 PM
You've come a long way, baby. I don't remember when we first started incessantly focusing on the September Fed meeting as the deciding factor in the...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 10:40 AM
Freddie
Mae has unveiled another round of changes to its Single-Family
Seller/Servicer Guide. There are more
than a half dozen changes effecting m...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 10:35 AM
More lenders are seeing an easing of mortgage lending
standards Fannie Mae said today. In its third
quarter Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey indi...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 10:22 AM
This morning's Residential Construction report from the
Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development for August was
mixed with a mo...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 10:04 AM
I bet for every person a company has dedicated to stopping cybercrime
there are 10 somewhere else trying to perpetrate it. Just yesterday I
rece...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 7:33 AM
More than any recent event--more than any silly old NFP report--today's FOMC events can and will move markets in a big way. It's not that markets are...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 5:50 PM
Some folks thought the Fed would hike today and others were pretty sure they wouldn't. The hike camp was the minority according to most surveys and...
Thu, Sep 17 2015, 5:07 PM
Mortgage rates came roaring back today after the Fed held steady at record-low policy rates. While the Fed Funds Rate doesn't directly dictate mo...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 11:55 AM
You can now review every federal agency ( even the CFPB ) on Yelp. There is an agreement in place that allows agencies to claim pages and respond to r...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 11:46 AM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo
Housing Market Index (HMI) ratcheted up another point this month continuing a
steady ri...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 9:09 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported that, as usually
occurs during a holiday week, mortgage applications declined significantly during
t...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 7:32 AM
It's pretty simple. 2015 is just like 2012-2013 , but replace the taper tantrum with the rate hike anxiety. Apart from that, things look eerily sim...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 5:20 PM
Bond markets began the overnight session with a small corrective move back toward lower yields but flat-lined at 2.26 (10yr yields). Selling pressu...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 3:50 PM
Mortgage rates almost made it through the past two months without any major move higher (except those moves that were correcting the major moves l...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 3:35 PM
It was only one point but the average FICO score on closed
loans did decrease slightly in August to 724, the lowest average score since
February 2...
Wed, Sep 16 2015, 1:28 PM
What is there to say about a day that has been so flat and uninteresting--especially compared to yesterday's craziness? Treasuries have essentially r...
Tue, Sep 15 2015, 10:35 AM
Owners of more than three-quarters of a
million U.S. homes regained equity in those homes during the second quarter of
2015. CoreLogic said on Tu...
Tue, Sep 15 2015, 10:06 AM
Financial markets exuded a distinct lack of inspiration yesterday, not unlike a concert audience when the opener is a band they've never heard of . S...
Tue, Sep 15 2015, 9:48 AM
A recent MBA Chart of the Week
focused on the Independent Mortgage Banks net production income and
purchase share. The independent mortgage ba...
Tue, Sep 15 2015, 6:42 PM
Today saw a good, old-fashioned pre-Fed "lead off." Or perhaps that should be a BAD lead off, considering bond markets lost considerable ground. Whe...
Tue, Sep 15 2015, 5:14 PM
Mortgage rates had been holding their breath and waiting calmly for Thursday's big announcement from the Fed. Today saw the breath-holding come to ...
Tue, Sep 15 2015, 4:52 PM
Low interest rates are typically thought of as advantageous
to borrowers but not so good, perhaps even harmful to investors. The Wells Fargo/Gallup ...
Mon, Sep 14 2015, 12:48 PM
Bond markets were moderately strong overnight , both at home and abroad, but the gains left Treasuries and MBS well within the narrow range that has ...
Mon, Sep 14 2015, 12:09 PM
It has been almost a month since the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced the final goals for affordable housing for mortgages and rental...
Mon, Sep 14 2015, 10:11 AM
One
of the problems with servicing loans in Hawaii, or even for
"mainlanders" originating loans there, is name pronunciation. How does
someone f...
Mon, Sep 14 2015, 7:33 AM
I heard a rather excitable radio personality refer to this week's FOMC meeting as the "most important central bank meeting in the history of monetary...
Mon, Sep 14 2015, 5:27 PM
It was a tediously calm Monday for bond markets, with one or two exceptions. The first would be that the overnight trading session did see a moderate...
Mon, Sep 14 2015, 5:23 PM
Mortgage rates are officially holding their breath ahead of Thursday's FOMC Announcement. It's not mortgages, specifically, but the entire bond m...
