Fri, Feb 18 2022, 4:15 PM
Would Rates Be Going Higher Without Ukraine Situation?
Rates were rising abruptly as of last Thursday when t...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 12:43 PM
3-day weekends are generally popular among the "weekday 9-5" crowd, but they can also bring elevated uncertainty to financial markets when the news cy...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 11:21 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is projecting a decline in new home sales for January. Based on data collected from its Builder Application Sur...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 11:18 AM
Greetings from wintry Chicago where mortgage rates, as they are across the nation, are back to May 2019 levels. Did you know that the name "Chicago" c...
Fri, Feb 18 2022, 11:09 AM
While last year was an excellent one for existing home sales, they did peter out at the end, falling 4.6 percent in December. The January numbers, rel...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 4:38 PM
Bonds Continue Watching Geopolitical Sideshow
Bonds are in a bit of a lull in the bigger picture. Yields ha...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 4:35 PM
It's Thursday and thus time once again for the weekly installment of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. For the 2nd time this year, Fred...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 12:19 PM
I received this from a loan officer in Michigan. “Forget the Serenity Prayer! Grant me coffee to change the things I can, and wine to accept those tha...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 9:52 AM
Residential construction numbers for January were mixed . Permits were up slightly from December but starts fell back from December’s near 12-point ...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 4:11 PM
No Whammies in Fed Minutes, Geopolitics, or Bond Volatility
Today ended up being one of the least volatile t...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 3:24 PM
There have been a few hours of a few days over the past week where mortgage rates have been just a bit higher than they are this afternoon. But for...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 1:08 PM
Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) reported substantial increases in their financial results for 2021 when compared to 2020 and a greatly im...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 12:39 PM
Bonds finally had a relatively flat trading session overnight with no Russia/Ukraine headlines sparking any obvious reactions. Stronger Retail Sales ...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 10:47 AM
There was another bit of erosion in builder confidence in February. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 8:48 AM
Things change and time passes. A little more than three months ago we “fell back” and now we have less than a month until most states in the U.S. chan...
Wed, Feb 16 2022, 8:41 AM
The volume of mortgage applications declined for the second week as interest rates for some products crossed the 4.0 percent line. The Mortgage Banker...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 5:08 PM
Ukraine Headlines Are Noise in The Bigger (Badder) Picture
The overnight trading session was marked by sever...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 2:54 PM
Even as the economy is improving, access to mortgage credit fell in January as investors cut back their demand for some products. The Mortgage Bankers...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 10:02 AM
Another tool will soon be available to lenders working with Freddie Mac that is expected to speed up loan processing and reduce the paperwork involv...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 10:01 AM
The downside of a bond rally based on geopolitical risk is that gains can evaporate quickly in the event of de-escalation. That's the theme of today'...
Tue, Feb 15 2022, 9:26 AM
Sure, Fannie had $5.2 billion of net income in the fourth quarter of 2021, but money can’t buy you love. Love is more of a chemical reaction than a st...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 4:07 PM
Last Friday was an interesting day for mortgage rates and the broader bond market. Rates began the day roughly in line with Thursday's latest levels,...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 3:53 PM
Comic Misdirection Between Headlines and Markets
Geopolitical issues remain at the forefront as far as finan...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 12:27 PM
According to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), 87.5 million households, 69 percent of the nation’s total, cannot afford to buy a new m...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 12:14 PM
Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life outta nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops. (Where di...
Mon, Feb 14 2022, 11:34 AM
Last Friday's big news involved a series of headlines suggesting imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. This sent stocks and especially bond yields pl...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 7:31 PM
There were 3 distinct parts to this week. The first part consisted of the entirety of the first 3 days. Rates didn't move much as the market contin...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 4:23 PM
Massive Reversal After Russia/Ukraine Headlines
Quite the round trip today as bond yields hit the weakest le...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 11:49 AM
Consumer Sentiment was the only report on the calendar today. Markets typically don't pay too much attention to it and today is no exception. Market...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 11:01 AM
The sources that gather such data have all reported a steady decline in mortgage delinquencies since last summer and are all stages are now close to t...
Fri, Feb 11 2022, 11:00 AM
If you see someone buying candy, popcorn, and soda at the movies, they must be a drug dealer... There's no other explanation for that type of income! ...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 4:10 PM
Bonds Obliterated. Why and What Next?
Today was an astonishingly bad day for the bond market relative to wh...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 1:53 PM
For the second time this week a major report on loan performance has confirmed that homeowners are recovering rapidly from the pandemic. The Nationa...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 12:39 PM
While recent reports from Black Knight and CoreLogic show price increases continuing at record levels, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) rep...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 12:22 PM
There are many different ways to track mortgage rates and several different sources quoted in the news. For decades, the most prevalently-quoted sour...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 12:07 PM
Everyone has a story about something they said or asked that they shouldn’t have. “When are you due?” is a good one, as is asking, “When did you turn ...
Thu, Feb 10 2022, 9:45 AM
The history of financial markets is littered with modestly higher CPI numbers that failed to cause any volatility. Today is shaping up to be quite th...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 4:28 PM
The day began with so much potential --at least in the sense that it could have served as the foundation for slightly lower mortgage rates this after...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 4:11 PM
Strong Auction But Bonds Retreat at The Close
This morning's market summary headline mentioned the strong st...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 1:40 PM
CoreLogic is tying the current mortgage delinquency rate, which is back to pre-pandemic levels , to growth in the nation’s income. The company says t...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 11:44 AM
US and EU yields continue to correlate fairly well. This is a blessing and curse--sometimes both at the same time depending on the point of view. Fo...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 9:27 AM
Today is “National Pizza Day,” a made-up day that wasn’t around when Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president 45 years ago. Back then the yield on the r...
Wed, Feb 9 2022, 8:35 AM
Mortgage application volume surged 12 percent two weeks ago but gave back a large chunk of that gain during the week ended February 4. last week. ...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 4:42 PM
Last Friday continues to be the epicenter of the most recent push to multi-year highs for mortgage rates. The average lender jumped by roughly an e...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 4:15 PM
More Long-Term Rate Highs, But No New Reasons
Bonds were in sell mode right from the start of the overnight ...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 11:29 AM
How low can it go? Well, lower than ever apparently when it comes to consumers who think it's a good time to a home. The total fell 1 point to a rec...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 9:51 AM
1.95% was a tremendously important technical ceiling in late 2019 before covid. It lay dormant for more than 2 years until the early 2022 sell-off put...
Tue, Feb 8 2022, 8:47 AM
America's national debt topped $30 trillion for the first time, according to figures from the Treasury Department on Tuesday. Why might it matter for ...
Mon, Feb 7 2022, 4:01 PM
Uneventfully Holding Near Long-Term Rate Highs
This morning's commentary centered on last Friday's dark hors...
Mon, Feb 7 2022, 1:29 PM
Black Knight did not publish a Mortgage Monitor in January, so the new issue looks at the mortgage market at the end of 2021 into the early days of 20...
