http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/ Mortgage News Daily https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-recap-08282026 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:22:11 GMT 6a920af8a6791958c5aa3ead Matthew Graham Hawkish Read on Warsh Prompts Heavy Selling Jackson Hole speeches are hit and miss when it comes to bond market volatility. Today's Warsh speech was something of a direct hit--more than enough to sink the battleship of anyone hoping for lower rates to end the week. Warsh's hawkishness was limited to tough talk on inflation and an upbeat assessment of the economy. It wasn't terribly different from the late July press conference, but the market viewed it as upgrading the chance of a rate hike before the end of 2026. 2yr Treasury yields (more sensitive to Fed rate expectations than the 10yr) rose more than 12bps by the close. MBS shed 3/8ths of a point and mortgage rates crested 3 week highs. Market Movement Recap 09:04 AM Sideways to slightly weaker. MBS down 1 tick (.03) and 10yr up 1bp at 4.68 10:18 AM MBS down a quick eighth after Warsh speech and 10yr up 1.5bps at 4.686 (2yr up almost 7bps). 01:13 PM MBS down nearly 3/8ths and 10yr up 5.4bps at 4.724 Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08282026 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:45:00 GMT 6a91d9b9260b93beb9adfdff Matthew Graham Jackson Hole is a place in Wyoming, but it's also shorthand for an annual event where various central bankers get together and talk about monetary policy. The Fed Chair almost always delivers a speech and that speech occasionally causes volatility in the bond market. This year was a classic example. Fed Chair Warsh's speech focused on inflation remaining too high and on the Fed's commitment to getting inflation back down to 2.0% as measured by the annual change in the PCE Price Index (currently at 3.7%). Even if we use the most charitable methods to estimate annual PCE prices, the index would still be in the 2.4-2.6% range. Those details don't really matter for today, however. What matters is that the market took away a hawkish message from Warsh and the bond market reacted immediately. Mortgage rates were fairly flat before that, but the average lender increased mortgage rates in response to the bond market movement seen after Warsh's speech.   The net effect was a move up to 6.81% for the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate--the highest in just over 3 weeks.  [thirtyyearmortgagerates] Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/08282026-mortgage-applications-mba Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:38:00 GMT 6a91d65cbd3dadc84373d773 Matthew Graham Mortgage application activity softened last week, with both purchase and refinance demand moving lower as mortgage rates climbed to their highest level in three weeks. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a 1.0% decrease in total application volume on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending August 21. Purchase applications were down 0.3% from the previous week on a seasonally adjusted basis and 5% below the same week one year ago. FHA applications accounted for much of the weekly decline, falling 7% . Refinance demand also lost some ground. The Refinance Index fell 2% from the previous week and remained 17% below year-ago levels. FHA and VA refinance applications saw particularly notable declines, while the average refinance loan size fell to its lowest level since June 2025. "Mortgage rates reached their highest level in three weeks, with the 30-year fixed rate up slightly to 6.78 percent. Mortgage rates have increased around 20 basis points over the past two months, which has dampened refinancing activity," said Joel Kan, MBA's Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. Despite the pullback in refinancing, refinances accounted for a slightly larger share of overall activity, rising to 42.0% from 41.9% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share also ticked higher, reaching 7.9% from 7.7%. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/08282026-new-home-sales Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:35:00 GMT 6a91d581bd3dadc84373d770 Matthew Graham The new home market struggled to maintain the momentum seen in June, with sales falling sharply in July and inventory moving higher. The latest Census Bureau and HUD figures point to another month of uneven activity for builders, as buyers continue to contend with affordability constraints and elevated mortgage rates. Sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 607,000 in July, down 10.5% from June's revised 678,000 and 6.3% below the same month last year. The monthly decline largely erased June's increase, leaving the broader sales trend little changed. In the bigger picture, the new home market has been broadly flat since the post-COVID volatility faded in early 2023. Meanwhile, builders added to the pool of available homes. The number of new houses for sale reached 488,000 , an increase of 1.9% from June, although inventory remained 1.6% below its level a year earlier. With the sales pace slowing as inventory increased, the implied supply rose to 9.6 months , up from 8.5 months in June and 9.2 months in July 2025. Pricing offered a mixed signal. The median sales price slipped to $393,800 , down 2.3% from June and 0.9% from a year earlier. The average sales price, however, climbed to $508,800 , an increase of 4.1% from the previous month and 5.4% from July 2025. As a reminder, price movements in this data set are not necessarily apples to apples, since changes in the mix of homes sold can have a significant effect on the reported figures. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/08282026-case-shiller-fhfa-home-prices-prices-apprecia Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:25:00 GMT 6a91d4b0bd3dadc84373d76f Matthew Graham Home prices continued to edge higher in the latest readings from FHFA and the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Indices , with both measures showing somewhat stronger annual gains than they did a month earlier. The improvement was still relatively modest, however, and inflation continued to run ahead of home values. At the same time, the national figures continue to mask a growing divide between markets where prices are still climbing at a healthy pace and those where values have begun to slip. According to FHFA, U.S. house prices rose 2.1% between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, while prices increased 0.3% from the first quarter. The agency's seasonally adjusted index was unchanged from May to June, suggesting that the quarterly gain came without much additional momentum heading into the summer. Prices have continued to appreciate nationally, but the current pace remains a far cry from the rapid increases seen earlier in the decade. The FHFA data also show just how differently housing markets are behaving across the country. All nine census divisions posted annual gains, led by the East North Central division at 4.5% . The Pacific division brought up the rear with appreciation of just above 0% . At the state level, Alaska recorded the largest increase at 8.3% , while Vermont and Hawaii followed at 7.3% and 5.8%, respectively. Only four states saw prices decline, with New Mexico posting the largest drop at 1.2% . Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-08282026 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:45:43 GMT 6a9180c4ba4c454766c1a770 Rob Chrisman STRATMOR’s 2026 Technology Insight® Study Lender Intelligence Survey is now open, giving mortgage lenders a chance to share their firsthand experience with the technology that powers their businesses, and to help shape a clearer picture of what’s working, what isn’t, and where the industry is headed. The study reflects actual lender experience, providing an independent view of user satisfaction and Lender Loyalty Score® across a wide range of mortgage technology categories. Complete the survey and receive the results free of charge, giving you valuable intelligence you can use to understand how your technology experience compares across the industry. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Experian. From lenders and landlords to employers and consumers, Experian helps connect the housing ecosystem with the data and insights needed to make faster, confident decisions. Lead a smarter housing journey with Experian. Today’s has an interview with Figure’s Alysse Guitar on marketing lending products in a digital environment where both trust and attention spans are waning.) Broker and Lender Products, Software, and Services Traditional CRM is dead... Total Expert just said so, out loud. Not as a rebrand, but as a category shift: CRMs were built to log tasks and manage transactions, and they start losing value the day you deploy them. Total Expert's Customer Operating System works the opposite way, getting smarter with every interaction by pairing a system of context—Customer IQ—with a system of action—AI Sales Assistant, Journey Orchestration—so rate opportunities, tappable equity, and life-event signals get caught and acted on automatically, with loan officers stepping in only when a customer actually needs their expertise. One top 10 lender used it to drive over 1,000 HELOC originations in six weeks. Total Expert has enabled more than $7 trillion in funded loan volume since 2016. Read the full breakdown. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-morning-08282026 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:43:57 GMT 6a919f28a6791958c5a968aa Matthew Graham In an attempt to not force another "Warsh" or "Jackson Hole" headline (because it's a coin flip as to whether it will matter), the calendar offers up another event that is almost guaranteed not to matter. Despite the familiar name, today's nonfarm payrolls data is not the NFP you're looking for (that NFP will be out next Friday). Rather, this is the preliminary annual benchmark revision which can make for big changes in the job count over the previous year, but which says nothing about the current state of the labor market. It's a statistical adjustment that is often blown WAY out of proportion by market watchers or politicians with axes to grind.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-recap-08272026 Thu, 27 Aug 2026 20:25:08 GMT 6a90ab68a6791958c5a7c2bb Matthew Graham Fairly Calm Despite Some Fuel Price Pressure; Warsh on Deck To reiterate a sentiment from this morning, there's a decent amount of focus on Friday's Warsh speech at Jackson Hole simply because it's customary to focus on Fed Chair speeches at Jackson Hole. They're hit and miss in terms of delivering on volatility potential. There's nothing else of note on the econ calendar. With Monday being the last day of the month, we could also see momentum from early month-end trading. Other than that, fuel prices continue to set the tone more often than not. Today was no exception as an early afternoon surge in oil pushed yields to the highs of the day after reports that the White House rejected the idea of rekindling the June MOU/ceasefire. Econ Data / Events Jobless Claims  203k vs 208k f'cast, 207k prev Continued Jobless Claims 1778k vs 1790k f'cast, 1796k prev Market Movement Recap 08:31 AM Modestly weaker overnight. MBS down 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr up 1.2bps at 4.661 02:06 PM MBS down 5 ticks (.16) and 10yr up 3bps at 4.679 04:07 PM MBS down 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr up 2.1bps at 4.67 Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-08272026 Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:45:00 GMT 6a9097835f2f3fbe2834e293 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates barely budged again on Thursday, but there was far less data to digest compared to Wednesday. Bonds (which dictate rates) were steady to slightly weaker. The "weaker" part connotes higher rates, but the weakness was late in the day and too small for most mortgage lenders to do anything about it. What does that mean? Unlike the actual bond market, which can move every millisecond, mortgage lenders only change rates 1-3 times per day, and it's usually only once per day unless market volatility is high enough. Today's volatility didn't quite clear the bar. If bonds had lost slightly more ground, we might have seen a few lenders raise rates this afternoon. With that in mind, lenders are heading into tomorrow at a bit of a disadvantage. In other words, if bonds don't improve between now and tomorrow morning, the average lender will likely be offering higher rates tomorrow.  One other thing to keep in mind is that Fed Chair Warsh is scheduled to speak around the same time mortgage rates come out. There's no way to know exactly what that will do to the market (perhaps nothing), but it does create some additional volatility potential. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-08272026 Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:45:13 GMT 6a90305f9f1ef7eae9f2d815 Rob Chrisman Thank you to the folks who wrote to me about their concerns with the Reno fire, knowing my ties there (my place is safe). On a broader scale, as of August 24, the United States has had nearly 51,000 wildfires, blazes that have burned over 7.8 million acres, a concern of everyone including lenders and servicers. It’s not your imagination that it’s a lot: Compared to the 10-year average, the number of fires is 129 percent of normal, and the acres burned is 168 percent of typical. Last year over the same period, there were just 45,331 fires and 4,065,073 acres burned. Water can equally be a concern: Some 129 million people (nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population) live in coastal counties. Recent research shows that a rise in sea level driven by humans has increased the frequency of extreme coastal flooding around the world, also a concern to lenders and servicers. Here’s what’s Florida is doing. Florida’s traditional appeal as a retirement destination is being eroded by rapidly rising housing costs and inflation (South Florida’s CPI has climbed 36 percent since 2019), while homeowners insurance premiums remain more than twice the national average, making the state increasingly expensive for retirees. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Experian. From lenders and landlords to employers and consumers, Experian helps connect the housing ecosystem with the data and insights needed to make faster, confident decisions. Lead a smarter housing journey with Experian. Today’s has an interview with MIAC’s Dan Libby on the long-term drivers of MSR value, portfolio construction, and hedging effectiveness.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full