Wed, Jun 25 2025, 4:21 PM
Mid Day Reversal Leaves Bonds Slightly Stronger
This morning, we noted the lightness of the selling pressure...
Wed, Jun 25 2025, 3:21 PM
The average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate had already dipped to the lowest levels since May 1st at the start of the week. Two additional days of ...
Wed, Jun 25 2025, 11:41 AM
AI doesn’t have an NMLS number. (Zillow has never, ever set foot in a house for that matter.) Do you own a computer? Most in lending do. Elon Musk? I ...
Wed, Jun 25 2025, 11:23 AM
Bonds are taking a breath this morning after hitting the best levels in more than a month yesterday. The event calendar is much lighter than it seems ...
Tue, Jun 24 2025, 3:34 PM
Solid Response to Data and Dovishness
The morning commentary focused more on the relatively dovish tone stru...
Tue, Jun 24 2025, 3:00 PM
Both the FHFA and Case‑Shiller home price indices were released today. While the data collection time frame is from April, they each suggest a similar...
Tue, Jun 24 2025, 2:37 PM
Yesterday saw mortgage rates fall to the best levels since early May. Now, today, we'd have to go all the way back to the end of April to find anythi...
Tue, Jun 24 2025, 11:55 AM
Residential business is coming through in dribs and drabs for many lenders, but that doesn’t stop all the random news out there. To no one’s surprise,...
Tue, Jun 24 2025, 11:19 AM
Powell's prepared remarks and Q&A at today's congressional testimony are showing the market a clearer path to the possibility of rate cuts in the near...
Mon, Jun 23 2025, 4:18 PM
Best Closing Levels in More Than a Month
Don't look now, but rates just inched their way down to the best le...
Mon, Jun 23 2025, 3:12 PM
Mortgage rates ended the previous week roughly in line with the best levels since May 1st. Today's modest improvement made it official. Mortgage ra...
Mon, Jun 23 2025, 11:55 AM
For many, business is slow out there, and the industry waits for the House vote on the abusive trigger lead bill. Depository banks continue to focus o...
Mon, Jun 23 2025, 11:23 AM
A vast majority of long-time bond watchers share the same general understanding of how war impacts rates. Specifically, the increased global economic ...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 5:00 PM
Underwhelming (But Friendly) Conclusion
The present week didn't manage to offer nearly as much excitement as...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 2:08 PM
The latest Residential Construction report from the Census Bureau showed a noticeable drop in overall housing starts in May, though single-family acti...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 1:32 PM
Mortgage application activity declined modestly last week despite a drop in rates, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest survey...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 1:23 PM
Builder sentiment declined for the second straight month according to the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo's latest Housing...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 1:07 PM
With Thursday being a federal holiday, banks (and more importantly, the underlying market for mortgage related bonds) were closed. This means that le...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 11:42 AM
Happy Summer Solstice, and happy 50th birthday to the movie Jaws. Back then, for security, all we had to remember was where we hid our house key, or t...
Fri, Jun 20 2025, 11:00 AM
Much like the Friday after Thanksgiving, we have to wonder what the point is of a trading session without any neighbors (there's actually some guiding...
Wed, Jun 18 2025, 4:57 PM
Fed Threads Needle of Apathy
Today marked one of only 4 days of the year with an updated Fed dot plot. When ...
Wed, Jun 18 2025, 4:17 PM
It happens, but it's rare. A Fed "dot plot" day has come and gone with mortgage rates almost perfectly unchanged from the previous day. This speaks to...
Wed, Jun 18 2025, 2:00 PM
Although swings in net exports have affected the data, recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. The u...
Wed, Jun 18 2025, 11:53 AM
Today we hear from the U.S. Federal Reserve. We can expect no change to overnight fed funds. As pointed yesterday by Dr. Paul Brewbaker, the economist...
Wed, Jun 18 2025, 10:47 AM
Fed day is here and there's a 0% chance of a rate cut. That's been the case for just over a month due a combination of April's jobs report and the st...
Tue, Jun 17 2025, 4:31 PM
Dot Plot in Focus With Fed's "No Cut" Announcement
Bonds lost some ground after this morning's economic data...
Tue, Jun 17 2025, 3:19 PM
Mortgage rates continue operating in a narrow range with almost every day of the past two months falling between 6.8 and 7.0% for a top tier 30yr fixe...
Tue, Jun 17 2025, 11:46 AM
In Spain, Spaniards are shooting water pistols at foreigners to protest the impact of mass tourism: it has created a housing crunch. Tourism in the Un...
Tue, Jun 17 2025, 10:53 AM
Bonds were decently stronger in the overnight session, but not for any new, specific reasons. Trading levels have been cutting an increasingly narrow...
Mon, Jun 16 2025, 4:15 PM
Token Weakness Without a Cause
Sometimes bonds rally or sell-off for no apparent reason, or at least for no ...
Mon, Jun 16 2025, 3:53 PM
While there's been no shortage of political and geopolitical headlines over the past 2 business days, there hasn't been much by way of inspiration for...
Mon, Jun 16 2025, 11:43 AM
Any food science major will tell you that the difference between jelly and jam is that jam has chunks of fruit in it; jelly is strained. There is also...
Mon, Jun 16 2025, 10:25 AM
After rallying fairly well last Wednesday and Thursday, bonds pulled back on Friday, but not enough to erase more than half of the week's gains. The n...
Fri, Jun 13 2025, 3:32 PM
Not Reading Too Much Into Friday's Weakness
At first glance, with only one report on the calendar, it's only...
Fri, Jun 13 2025, 3:11 PM
The top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate index rose 0.04% on Friday, which would be a medium-sized defeat in and of itself. In the broader context, howev...
Fri, Jun 13 2025, 12:49 PM
After a Memorial Day-induced lull, mortgage application activity rebounded sharply last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) la...
Fri, Jun 13 2025, 11:51 AM
Hey, for you LOs who think things are slow, you can always go into golf. The best example of this is ex-LO Ben Griffin who has racked up $11 million i...
Fri, Jun 13 2025, 9:53 AM
By 8pm last night, news of Israel's attack on Iran erased an entire week of stock market gains and pushed bond yields to the lowest levels in more tha...
Thu, Jun 12 2025, 4:13 PM
Thursday's Data Offered No Objection to Overnight Rally
Thursday's PPI was just as tame as Wednesday's CPI a...
Thu, Jun 12 2025, 3:50 PM
Mortgage rates being offered today are only a hair lower for the average lender than they were on June 4th, but June 4th was the best day since early ...
Thu, Jun 12 2025, 11:51 AM
“I was always a home builder, but lately I’ve developed an apartment complex.” Here in Florida, so many structures are made of stucco because stucco i...
Thu, Jun 12 2025, 10:02 AM
This morning's PPI did its best impression of yesterday's CPI with the core monthly number coming in at 0.1 vs 0.3 forecast. In yesterday's case, this...
Wed, Jun 11 2025, 4:19 PM
Nice Rally on Data and Auction Results
Wednesday ended up being a straightforward session for bonds with a l...
Wed, Jun 11 2025, 3:48 PM
After a calm start to the week on Monday and Tuesday, we were likely to see a bit more volatility on Wednesday due to important events on the calendar...
Wed, Jun 11 2025, 11:50 AM
Here in Tampa, I was walking through the hotel bar last night when I overheard someone say, “Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 PM is the new midnig...
Wed, Jun 11 2025, 9:53 AM
Heading into today's CPI data, our stance was that we'd need to see the monthly core number come in at 0.1 vs 0.3 in order to see much of a friendly r...
Tue, Jun 10 2025, 3:49 PM
No Drama Today. How About Tomorrow?
After a slightly bumpy start for reasons that remain unknown, the bond m...
Tue, Jun 10 2025, 3:37 PM
It was a fairly boring day on what has turned out to be a fairly boring week so far for mortgage rates. After Friday's larger spike, we've seen a mic...
Tue, Jun 10 2025, 11:42 AM
“Why is Ireland so expensive? House prices are always Dublin'.” Those days are temporarily over in the United States, and the pendulum is quickly swin...
Tue, Jun 10 2025, 10:46 AM
Although bonds are experiencing a small amount of volatility this morning, it isn't consequential in the bigger picture. Quick-but-modest weakness at...
