http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/ Mortgage News Daily https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-06292026 Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:29:44 GMT 6a4264c86d186c57733b2966 Rob Chrisman Lenders often ask about improving their execution, and STRATMOR’s current blog is “Pricing That Can Help Borrowers.” MLOs occasionally ask about an online tool that can help potential borrowers understand the process. Here’s something for your new clients, especially those who are first-time home buyers: a short quiz to get them started on what to think about in financing a home. For those of us in the industry who ask about some of the terms in our business, here’s something to keep in your back pocket: The MISMO Business Glossary delivers a curated set of standardized business definitions used across the mortgage lifecycle. By providing consistent terminology, the glossary helps industry participants communicate more clearly, improve operational efficiency, and reduce misunderstandings that can lead to risk and errors. (Today’s podcast can be found here and 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 Clear Capital’s Jason Legare on why appraisal modernization adoption remains uneven despite clear efficiency gains, where alternatives such as inspection-based waivers are gaining traction, and the operational and cultural barriers slowing broader acceptance.) Broker and Lender Software, Products, and Services Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-morning-06292026 Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:24:52 GMT 6a428e88a6791958c527f4b4 Matthew Graham At the risk of jinxing it, Monday is pretty much already in the back as an uneventful start to a holiday-shortened week (early close on Thursday and fully closed on Friday). Bonds were very flat overnight and are near unchanged levels in the first few hours. Unchanged is good in this case as it means we're holding in a friendlier trading range under the 4.42% technical level in 10yr yields. Today is the only data-free day of the week and the next 3 are action-packed by comparison. While we're expecting lower volume than normal due to the time of year and the holiday, this doesn't necessarily mean lower volatility. In fact, light volume often exacerbates volatility if there are big market movers in play (like Thursday's jobs report). We're also open to a bit of extra volatility on the first two days of the week as quarter-end trading wraps up. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-recap-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:51:07 GMT 6a3ef570a6791958c5233557 Matthew Graham Early Gains. Flat Afternoon. MBS Underperform Friday ended up offering a boring conclusion to a week that had at least some measure of excitement on Wednesday. Bonds started a hair stronger, lost ground modestly and then rallied to the day's best levels by noon. From there, 10yr yields went perfectly sideways in an ultra narrow range. MBS managed to hang on to just barely positive levels but gave up about an eighth of a point during the time Treasuries were holding steady. Technically, this is underperformance in a vacuum, but in the bigger picture, MBS have been doing just fine in relative terms. As a reminder, next week is 3.5 days thanks to Independence Day observance, and the jobs report will be on Thursday morning.  Market Movement Recap 09:04 AM Stronger overnight, but bouncing back a bit now. 10yr up 0.3bps and MBS unchanged. 12:04 PM Near strongest levels. MBS up an eighth and 10yr down 1.8bps at 4.373 04:29 PM Off strongest levels in MBS, now up only 2 ticks (.06). 10yr down 1.9bps at 4.372 Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 19:06:00 GMT 6a3ecee17f19115eae0e9257 Matthew Graham Mortgage rates officially hit their lowest level in more than a month yesterday with MND's 30yr fixed index falling to 6.53% from 6.55% on Wednesday. Today was completely unchanged at 6.53%, thus maintaining the lowest level since May 14th, 2026.  There weren't any dramatic developments behind the scenes in term of economic data or news headlines (not that we'd expect them when rates hold perfectly flat). This week's broader improvement can be attributed to buying demand in the bond market owing to large investors rebalancing their stock/bond portfolios before the end of the quarter. As the quarter officially ends early next week, new volatility could emerge. It could be further compounded by the more active slate of economic data culminating in Thursday's big jobs report--the biggest economic report on any given month. NOTE: the jobs report would normally be out on a Friday, but next Friday is the holiday observance for the 4th of July.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/06262026-new-home-sales Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:58:00 GMT 6a3ecd856c212214ed223427 Matthew Graham New home sales weakened further in May, extending the pullback seen over the past several months as elevated mortgage rates and affordability pressures continued to weigh on buyer demand. According to the latest Census Bureau and HUD data, sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 580,000 , down 7.3% from April and 6.8% from a year earlier. Inventory continued to build, with the number of new homes for sale rising to 496,000 , up 2.3% from April, though still 1.4% below May 2025 levels. At the current sales pace, that left months' supply at 10.3 months , up from 9.3 months in April and 9.7 months one year ago. Home prices moved higher in May. The median sales price increased to $424,900 , up 2.0% from April and essentially unchanged from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the average sales price rose sharply to $540,600 , a 7.8% monthly increase and 5.0% above May 2025 levels. While the chart above is potentially alarming at first glance, it's always worth remembering 2 things: 1. New Home Sales data is notoriously choppy month to month, and prone to sometimes significant revisions. 2. Existing Home Sales run at an annual pace over 4 million (compared to New Home Sales at just under 600k), and they've been trending modestly higher in the past few months.  Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/06262026-mortgage-applications-mba Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:55:00 GMT 6a3ecbae6c212214ed223424 Matthew Graham Mortgage applications posted a modest increase last week, though overall activity remained subdued by historical standards as borrowing costs held relatively steady. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a 1.0% increase in total application volume on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending June 19. Refinance activity provided most of the support for the weekly gain. The Refinance Index increased 3% from the previous week and was 17% higher than the same period one year ago. Purchase demand slipped slightly but continued to hold above year-ago levels. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1% from the prior week, while remaining 3% higher than the same week in 2025. “Mortgage rates changed little over the course of last week, despite the more hawkish tone from the FOMC at its June meeting,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s SVP and chief economist. “Purchase application volume edged slightly lower, while refinance activity posted modest gains. Despite the elevated mortgage rates and overall economic uncertainty, mortgage application volume is running 8 percent above year-ago levels.” Refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 41.5% from 40.3%, while the ARM share declined to 8.2% from 8.5%. Government-backed application shares were mixed. FHA share increased to 17.9% from 17.5%, while VA share decreased to 12.3% from 12.9%. USDA share rose to 0.5% from 0.4%. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/news/06262026-housing-starts-building-permits-new-residenti Fri, 26 Jun 2026 18:29:00 GMT 6a3eca5c7f19115eae0e9254 Matthew Graham Residential construction activity cooled in May, as housing starts and completions both moved lower while building permits edged down only slightly. Last week's Census Bureau data suggests builders are still navigating uneven demand and affordability pressures, with a sharper pullback in starts than in permits. Privately owned housing starts fell 15.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.177 million , down from April’s revised 1.392 million pace. Starts were also 8.7% below their May 2025 level. Single-family starts slipped 1.9% to 882k, while starts for units in buildings with five units or more dropped to 284k. While that represents the lowest level of housing starts since 2020, building permits changed very little. Total building permits fell 0.7% to an annual rate of 1.413 million , just 0.2% below the year-ago pace. Single-family permits edged 0.6% higher to 886k, while multifamily authorizations came in at 474k. Another silver lining for single-family construction is that the drop in housing starts was primarily a factor of one of the largest single month drops in multifamily housing starts... ever. This is such an aberrant spike in the data that we'd hesitate to read too much into it unless the numbers remain similarly low in coming months (especially given 2+ years of slow, steady upward movement). Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/opinion/pipelinepress-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:10:57 GMT 6a3e73a6e85c3c39a4a8a0a4 Rob Chrisman We know that a) Congress passed a housing bill which, if not signed within 10 days, becomes law anyway, and b) U.S. presidents are known to be candid. Once again, we see the intersection of housing, lending, and politics with not only the postponement by the President of signing the bill, but also the statement of his alleged opinion about housing. The signing, originally scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, was called off just hours before it was set to begin. In a social media post, President Trump said he would not sign the housing package until Congress makes progress on separate election legislation, the SAVE America Act, which he has described as “a national emergency.” Attorney Troy Garris gives us the options on what happens next. Meanwhile, thank you to Kenneth S. who pointed out that Sheila Bair (as the head of the FDIC a central figure in the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis and who warned about the risky mortgage lending practices that precipitated it) is warning that today’s crop of financial regulators are forgetting the lessons of that painful saga by weakening banks’ capital buffers, which act as fortifications against unpredictable losses and are intended to ward off potential taxpayer bailouts. Stay tuned. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Equifax, a global data, analytics, and technology company, helps mortgage lenders gain the borrower and market insights they need to improve efficiency and make accurate decisions. Access differentiated consumer credit data, powerful consumer and market insights, and income and employment data from The Work Number. Today’s has an Interview with Equifax’s Justin Demola on how rising credit costs, higher borrower fallout rates, and inefficient credit-pull strategies are increasing origination expenses, making it critical for lenders to manage credit usage more strategically while leveraging reforms to improve efficiency and reduce costs.) Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-morning-06262026 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:01:54 GMT 6a3e9558a6791958c5227b2b Matthew Graham Q2 has been one of the best quarters for stocks going all the way back to the dot com boom, even after the 4-5% pullback in June. This has created a massive quarter-end rebalancing need among money managers and we've seen that random volatility play out in both stocks and bonds over the past few weeks. As the quarter wraps up in the next 3 business days, this could continue to drive volatility, but hopefully/probably less than it did earlier this week. Bonds are starting out roughly unchanged and have little else to focus on thanks to an uneventful economic calendar. Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mbs-recap-06252026 Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:27:01 GMT 6a3d9004a6791958c520ab72 Matthew Graham Mostly Holding Yesterday's Big Gains Bonds began the day in modestly weaker territory, but not weak enough to take 10yr yields above the 4.42% technical level. That was a notable development even before considering subsequent movement. The 8:30am PCE inflation data made room for a friendly reversal with modest losses being replaced by modest improvement. Bonds ultimately weren't able to hang onto the stronger levels seen in the morning with gradual selling in the late AM hours and another little pop of weakness following headlines that Iran had attacked a cargo ship in The Strait (not a U.S. ship, or the reaction would likely have been bigger). Bottom line: today failed to place an exclamation point on yesterday's rally, but it still wasn't a question mark. The only caveat is that quarter-end volatility is still a risk between now and Tuesday. Econ Data / Events Continued Claims (Jun)/13 1821.0K vs 1800K f'cast, 1810K prev Core CapEx (May) 1.6% vs 0.6% f'cast, -1.1% prev Core PCE (m/m) (May) 0.3% vs 0.3% f'cast, 0.2% prev Core PCE (y/y) (May) 3.4% vs 3.4% f'cast, 3.3% prev Durable goods (May) -4.5% vs -4.5% f'cast, 7.9% prev GDPQ1 2.1% vs 1.6% f'cast, 0.5% prev Jobless Claims (Jun)/20 215.0K vs 225K f'cast, 226K prev PCE (y/y) (May) 4.1% vs 4.1% f'cast, 3.8% prev PCE prices (m/m) (May) 0.4% vs 0.5% f'cast, 0.4% prev Market Movement Recap 08:49 AM Decent gains after PCE comes in on target. MBS up 6 ticks (.19) and 10yr down 1.2bps at 4.375 11:00 AM MBS up an eighth and 10yr down just under 1bp at 4.379 01:41 PM MBS still up an eighth but 10yr now down only 0.3bps at 4.384 Mortgage News Daily 0 http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/rss/full