Fri, Aug 21 2026, 3:36 PM
Incidental Weakness. Bigger Considerations on The Horizon
Without any data or compelling market movers, bond...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 2:35 PM
For all practical purposes, Friday's mortgage rates were unchanged versus Thursday's, but if we're splitting hairs, the average lender rose 0.01% to 6...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 2:21 PM
Residential construction pulled back in July as housing starts and completions declined from June levels, while building permits rebounded. The latest...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 2:14 PM
Pending home sales declined again in July as elevated mortgage rates and record-high home prices continued to weigh on buyer demand. The National Asso...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 2:07 PM
Builder sentiment improved slightly in August, but confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes remained subdued as elevated mortgage ...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 1:58 PM
Mortgage application activity was little changed last week as higher mortgage rates continued to weigh on purchase demand. The Mortgage Bankers Associ...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 11:52 AM
LOs tell me that they are counseling potential borrowers. “If you’re in the market for a home, focus on the things you can control. Save for your down...
Fri, Aug 21 2026, 9:29 AM
Bonds were a hair stronger overnight and are now a hair weaker at 9:15am ET. They may flip back and forth a few more times before the close. Ultimatel...
Thu, Aug 20 2026, 5:08 PM
Tune Out The Noise
Yesterday's Treasury buyback announcement and today's comments from Bessent make for good...
Thu, Aug 20 2026, 4:38 PM
While Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage rate survey may show rates moving slightly lower this week, today's rates are actually higher than they were at th...
Thu, Aug 20 2026, 11:43 AM
Lender and Broker Software, Products, and Services Automating individual tasks isn't the same as transforming mortgage operations. Real efficiency c...
Thu, Aug 20 2026, 9:34 AM
The correlation between bonds and fuel prices was already creeping back into the picture yesterday. After the Treasury buyback announcement got all of...
Wed, Aug 19 2026, 4:18 PM
AM Rally Ultimately Sticks With Help From Oil
To be clear, most of today's rally is attributable to the news...
Wed, Aug 19 2026, 3:43 PM
Mortgage rates dropped on Wednesday due to a combination of lower oil prices and the announcement of changes to Treasury's bond buyback program. The ...
Wed, Aug 19 2026, 11:43 AM
Everyone is racing to bolt AI onto their lending process. QAwerk's Konstantin Klyagin says most of them are skipping the boring part that actually mat...
Wed, Aug 19 2026, 10:21 AM
At 8:30am, Treasury announced it would double the size of the existing buyback program from $2 to $4 billion for 10-30yr maturities. This sounds like ...
Tue, Aug 18 2026, 4:25 PM
Boring Day But At Least Bonds Turned Green
Tuesday offered remarkably of interest or consequence for the bon...
Tue, Aug 18 2026, 3:33 PM
Mortgage rates rose for the third straight day on Tuesday with the average top-tier 30yr fixed rate moving up a modest 0.02% to 6.75%. Notably, the bo...
Tue, Aug 18 2026, 11:52 AM
While Lake Powell and the Colorado River are at their lowest levels ever, and states like Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington are in a drought, would yo...
Tue, Aug 18 2026, 10:26 AM
Big picture momentum has been calmly but clearly skewed toward higher yields for almost 10 months. There have been a few attempts to bounce at technic...
Mon, Aug 17 2026, 3:00 PM
War Headlines Pushing Oil and Yields Higher
Some summertime Mondays are slow and uneventful. Some see brisk ...
Mon, Aug 17 2026, 1:27 PM
After ending last week near the lowest level since July 17th, mortgage rates are moving up to start the new week. Motivations are familiar. Escalation...
Mon, Aug 17 2026, 11:41 AM
Some aren’t a fan of new federal escrow laws. Ten states have sued the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over new federal rules that would pre...
Mon, Aug 17 2026, 9:43 AM
It's just another day in post-Iran-war 2026. As such, bonds are taking cues from fuel price volatility which is in turn taking cues from the latest wa...
Fri, Aug 14 2026, 3:10 PM
Existing-home sales remained relatively stable in July despite elevated mortgage rates, with activity declining modestly from June while remaining abo...
Fri, Aug 14 2026, 3:06 PM
Mortgage application activity rebounded last week as a moderate decline in mortgage rates provided some relief for both homebuyers and homeowners cons...
Fri, Aug 14 2026, 2:56 PM
First, the bad news: mortgage rates ended the day just a hair higher compared to Thursday, but the change was so small that many borrowers will see li...
Fri, Aug 14 2026, 11:43 AM
If you think that profit per loan, or gain per unit, is based purely on size, think about this short video. “Profit” can also be a personal measure in...
Fri, Aug 14 2026, 10:01 AM
Based on a few research papers that have attempted to quantify the impact of various economic reports as well as the general consensus among economic ...
Thu, Aug 13 2026, 5:10 PM
Solid Data-Driven Gains
Thursday was a fairly straightforward session for bonds. Yields fell modestly overni...
Thu, Aug 13 2026, 4:07 PM
Mortgage rates dropped noticeably on Thursday on a combination of lower oil prices and a lower inflation reading via the Producer Price Index (PPI). R...
Thu, Aug 13 2026, 11:45 AM
Innovation, compliance, and affordability were key themes at this week’s Western Secondary. At the state level, for example, Kinder Institute report s...
Thu, Aug 13 2026, 9:51 AM
If nothing else, this morning offers confirmation of just how nervous the market is about inflation. The producer price index barely beat its forecast...
Wed, Aug 12 2026, 5:09 PM
Bonds End Flat After Front-Running The Decent Data
We absolutely hate the term "front-running" because it ca...
Wed, Aug 12 2026, 4:48 PM
Mortgage lenders set rates around 10am ET every day, but the bond market dictates the day to day changes, and bonds were on the move throughout the ov...
Wed, Aug 12 2026, 11:15 AM
One of the panels during this year’s California MBA Western Secondary focused on the ramp up of non-Agency/equity lending. Why has it increased as a p...
Wed, Aug 12 2026, 9:44 AM
It would have been hard for CPI to be any more boring. All key metrics came in perfectly in line with forecasts. Supercore (core minus housing), was 0...
Tue, Aug 11 2026, 4:56 PM
Bonds Looking Somewhat Optimistic Ahead of CPI
Bonds improved modestly on Tuesday which is actually a somewh...
Tue, Aug 11 2026, 4:30 PM
It ended up being a remarkably uneventful day for mortgage rates. Some lenders were slightly higher than yesterday. Others were roughly unchanged. The...
Tue, Aug 11 2026, 11:45 AM
What are folks talking about here at the Western Secondary? Small things and big things. There’s a brand-spankin’ new private MI company: Anza. (Conta...
Tue, Aug 11 2026, 10:36 AM
Bonds are rallying, and we have no objection to that. Reasons are simple and familiar enough that there's no sense in over-analyzing them. Newswires h...
Mon, Aug 10 2026, 4:00 PM
Issuance and Oil Strike Back
Oil prices continue to ebb and flow in concert with the Iran war news cycle. Th...
Mon, Aug 10 2026, 3:32 PM
As of last Friday, average top-tier mortgage rates hit their lowest levels since July 20th. If they'd managed to drop even 0.01% today, it would have ...
Mon, Aug 10 2026, 11:42 AM
Here in the hallways at the Western Secondary in L.A., there isn’t a lot of talk about GSE reform, although this short clip from Sam Valverde, ex-acti...
Mon, Aug 10 2026, 10:32 AM
Recent experience suggests the safest assumption about oil prices and bond yields is that they will pop and drop with reasonable regularity. In other ...
Fri, Aug 7 2026, 5:21 PM
Not Quite The Rally You'd Expect, But a Rally Nonetheless
Today's vitals might be a bit confusing at first g...
Fri, Aug 7 2026, 4:58 PM
Mortgage rates dropped moderately today after the latest jobs report showed much lower jobs created than expected. The monthly jobs report is one of ...
Fri, Aug 7 2026, 3:22 PM
Mortgage application activity declined for a second consecutive week as higher borrowing costs continued to weigh on both purchase and refinance deman...
Fri, Aug 7 2026, 11:52 AM
As many of us prepare to head to So Cal for the California MBA’s Western Secondary (800 or so registered), artificial intelligence continues to be the...
Fri, Aug 7 2026, 9:05 AM
Nonfarm payrolls (NFP) FELL 23k versus an 80k forecast. Last month was revised down as well. From a traditional market-watching perspective, this is ...
