Thu, Dec 10 2020, 4:06 PM
Bonds Are Getting Ready to Move, Probably
Bonds are always moving, to some extent, but they haven't moved ou...
Thu, Dec 10 2020, 4:05 PM
It's old news that 2020 is unprecedented for a lot of bad reasons, but how about a few that aren't so bad? As is often the case when anything causes m...
Thu, Dec 10 2020, 10:08 AM
One interesting theme that's emerging in December is that of weaker economic data actually hurting the bond market. This is certainly not in the conv...
Thu, Dec 10 2020, 9:59 AM
“My ability to remember song lyrics from the 80s far exceeds my ability to remember why I walked into the kitchen.” The Baby Boomers are certainly rid...
Thu, Dec 10 2020, 9:48 AM
Homeowner equity rose again in the third quarter of 2020, reaching the highest total in over six years. CoreLogic's quarterly report on that asset say...
Wed, Dec 9 2020, 4:47 PM
MBS-Specific Volatility Today, But No Major Change to Bigger-Picture
A fresh (or perhaps "slightly less stal...
Wed, Dec 9 2020, 4:46 PM
While all is easily forgiven in light of all-time low rates, the pandemic made a mess of the mortgage market in many ways. Most messes have been resol...
Wed, Dec 9 2020, 10:05 AM
Last night, a new stimulus plan was floated to Pelosi by Mnuchin. In theory, it includes provisions for several democratic sticking points, thus offe...
Wed, Dec 9 2020, 10:04 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said access to mortgage credit improved in November for the first time in several months but is still only abou...
Wed, Dec 9 2020, 9:58 AM
I’m gonna ask my Mom if that offer to “slap me into next year” is still on the table. It’s great to be a lender in 2020, and should be into 2021, but ...
Tue, Dec 8 2020, 4:47 PM
Bond Watchers Clearly Can't Choose The Wine in Front of ______
There are quite a few potential justification...
Tue, Dec 8 2020, 10:52 AM
After climbing for three straight months Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) stalled in November , declining 1.7 points to 80.0. The ind...
Tue, Dec 8 2020, 10:50 AM
By mid-November, bonds were rallying after hitting their weakest levels since the start of the pandemic. Due to the timing (i.e. heading into a holid...
Tue, Dec 8 2020, 10:41 AM
Huh? Talk of a government shut down? Again? Are you the typical lender off to a record December, after setting records in November, October, September...
Tue, Dec 8 2020, 8:39 AM
While the rate of non-current loans remained sharply higher than a year ago, CoreLogic reports that serious delinquencies , loans more than 89 days pa...
Mon, Dec 7 2020, 4:59 PM
You might think you know mortgage rates. You might make assumptions about where they'll go and what they'll do based on past precedent. For decades, y...
Mon, Dec 7 2020, 4:19 PM
Bond Market Threats on Hold For Now, But Still Lurking
Brexit-related headlines helped the bond market recov...
Mon, Dec 7 2020, 1:51 PM
The pandemic keeps manifesting itself in the housing market in small but potentially significant ways and there was another data point in Black Knight...
Mon, Dec 7 2020, 9:48 AM
It was impossible to avoid Brexit-related headlines in 2016. Indeed, they were the driving force behind Treasury yields hitting new all-time lows at ...
Mon, Dec 7 2020, 8:54 AM
Large-scale mortgage in-person conference activity, and official mortgage business travel, appears to be shut down until at least the summer of 2021. ...
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 6:03 PM
Big Bond Spike, Mortgage Rate Defiance, Lock or Float?
Today was characterized by an aggressive spike in 10y...
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 5:53 PM
Mortgage loans ultimately "turn into" bonds and those bonds have a certain value to investors. When those values change, so do the rates offered by mo...
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 1:55 PM
A noted housing researcher has analyzed the current frenzy of home buying and the rapidly escalating prices since the country emerged from its short-l...
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 10:45 AM
The cause and effect relationship between NFP (the "non-farm payrolls" component of the big jobs report) and the bond market is a tale as old as time....
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 10:27 AM
Mortgage forbearances for homeowners affected financially by the pandemic declined slightly over the past week. Black Knight said that there were 200,...
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 10:23 AM
Have you ever wondered why so many lottery winners go broke? If they had any financial sense, they wouldn’t have bought a lottery ticket in the first ...
Thu, Dec 3 2020, 4:43 PM
Tomorrow brings the month's most important economic report: the Employment Situation, often referred to simply as "the jobs report." No other piece of...
Thu, Dec 3 2020, 4:29 PM
Bonds Find Their Range Ahead of Jobs Report
The first 2 days of the month (yesterday and the day before) wer...
Thu, Dec 3 2020, 1:09 PM
An analysis published on Black Knight's blog indicates that rents and home prices don't always rise or fall in tandem. The company says comparing tren...
Thu, Dec 3 2020, 10:09 AM
With the COVID pandemic, it doesn’t quite seem like we’re in the middle of pro football season, although apparently the folks in Jacksonville will do ...
Thu, Dec 3 2020, 9:19 AM
What is a "dip buyer?" A "dip" refers to a drop in the price of an asset in the financial markets. In this case, a dip in bond prices would correspo...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 4:19 PM
Although it was the focus of yesterday's discussion , the ability of the mortgage market to hold steady in the face of bond market weakness continues ...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 4:06 PM
Breaking Down The Crazy Relationship of MBS, Mortgage Rates, and Treasuries
Bonds showed up to sell today--a...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 3:08 PM
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has published its 2021 Forward Mortgage Limits for FHA loans. The FHA limits are based on the Fe...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 11:17 AM
Fun with numbers for Hump Day! Numbers were behind HP’s decision to leave California for Houston. Thank you to Len T. who sent a great chart of the na...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 9:25 AM
Following yesterday's sharp losses, the bond market didn't do much overnight, nor is it doing much to push back in the other direction this morning. ...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 8:08 AM
There was the usual disruption to mortgage application activity during the Thanksgiving holiday week that ended November 27, although the volume, espe...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 4:06 PM
Serious Sell-Off in Bonds. Time to Panic?
A new month brought in new momentum for the bond market--a lot of...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 4:05 PM
Like many industries, housing finance has a superficial layer that's fairly easy to understand for the average consumer. A person wants a home. They d...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 11:39 AM
Total construction spending in October was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.439 trillion according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. This was...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 10:44 AM
That the rapid rise in home prices since spring is setting near decade long highs was confirmed again this week , this time by CoreLogic. The company ...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 10:08 AM
In equity news, despite some predictions to the contrary , the market had its best month since 1987. This, in the face of renewed layoffs and economic...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 9:34 AM
Remember the end of July? We were worried that an entire month of gains in bonds could give way to a momentum shift in August. It did. September br...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 4:43 PM
Although many mortgage lenders were technically open for business last Friday, it's a well-known unofficial holiday. Mortgage rate movement requires b...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 4:19 PM
Uneventful Month-End Day For Bonds, But MBS Outperform
Final trial results for Moderna's vaccine (it's still...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 11:22 AM
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released the new conforming loan limits which will be in place next year for mortgages acquired by the G...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 11:12 AM
While this COVID-19 positive year has certainly been an exception, spring is usually considered the optimum time , on both sides of the transaction, t...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 10:44 AM
Pending home sales, which ended a four-month streak of gains in September with a 2.2 percent decline, slipped further in October. The National Associa...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 10:08 AM
Thanksgiving week can't ever be fully trusted to provide an accurate glimpse of market momentum. In this year's case, it didn't really say much anywa...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 9:51 AM
Thank you to Tracy C. sent, “An unemployed court jester is nobody’s fool.” There are millions of unemployed U.S. citizens, and the CFPB, HUD, and othe...
