Thu, Oct 19 2023, 11:01 AM
Unlike lenders who are dealing with 8 percent on rates sheets, sports fans and sports bars are reveling: NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, all at the same time… And...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 4:54 PM
Our rate index has rapidly grown in popularity and exposure in recent years because it is timely and because it accounts for upfront costs in a way th...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 4:45 PM
Just Another "Worst Day Since..." Type of Day
In a rising rate environment where long term boundaries have r...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 2:50 PM
The full name of this program is USDA Rural Housing Guaranteed Loan Program . We’ll simplify its name here to the USDA Loan . If you prefer, our off...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 10:35 AM
“What do you call a bovine with a stutter that makes chocolate milk? Cacao.” Speaking of sweets, hats off to Byte’s booth at the conference for dishin...
Wed, Oct 18 2023, 9:04 AM
Mortgage applications fell again last week as interest rates rose into the high 7 percent range. The Mortgage Brokers Association (MBA) said its Marke...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 4:22 PM
Inflation and economic growth... Regardless of our thoughts on the underlying reasons, these two factors have played a key role in skyrocketing rates...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 4:04 PM
Strong Retail Sales Data and Logical Consequences
Today's morning commentary may as well be the recap. Very...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 11:46 AM
In addition to looking at economic data, the Fed also gets an earful from their "contacts" in the community. One would have to assume that those cont...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 11:39 AM
Stubbornly high mortgage rates further eroded home builders’ confidence in the new home market in October. Not only did the National Association of Ho...
Tue, Oct 17 2023, 10:56 AM
Talk in the hallways here at the MBA Annual in Philly? How about the cost of insurance of all types. Case in point: “What Happens When the Flood Insur...
Mon, Oct 16 2023, 4:22 PM
Last week was mostly good for mortgage rates, even if the goodness was made possible in large part by the badness of the previous week. By Friday, ra...
Mon, Oct 16 2023, 10:00 AM
The old joke, “Why don’t the Phillies have a website? Because they can’t string three W’s together!” is no longer true. The Phillies are doing just fi...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 7:26 PM
After hitting the highest levels in decades last week, mortgage rates dropped sharply at the beginning of this week. At first glance, this was a class...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 4:25 PM
Decent Recovery But MBS Underperform
On Thursday, 10yr yields came close to spiking 20bps, trough to peak, i...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 12:45 PM
Bonds drifted gradually but consistently intro stronger overnight. We could point to a few events and a few pieces of data (softer Chinese inflation,...
Fri, Oct 13 2023, 10:02 AM
Today, as I head to Chicago (from the Native American word shikaakwa, for the wild onion) on my way to Philadelphia, I received this note. “Rob, why i...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 4:23 PM
Mortgage rates have enjoyed 2 days of uncommonly big gains. Granted, they come at the expense of horrific events and an exceptionally high starting p...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 4:13 PM
Bonds Snap Back to Reality on Higher Core Services CPI
Even before this week's rally began, we knew to be on...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 11:10 AM
Today is 101223. Of course you know, by looking ahead to the last day of 2023, that it will be 123123. By then, how many times do you think you’ll hea...
Thu, Oct 12 2023, 11:04 AM
After a few days where it's been somewhat challenging to sort through the most relevant market movement considerations (war vs Fed speakers vs technic...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 4:45 PM
The holiday-shortened week began yesterday with a substantial decline in average mortgage rates. Caveats abound, however. They include things like t...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 4:44 PM
Why Are Bonds Still Rallying?
Bonds have seen only a few examples of a solid 2-day rally over the past few m...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 12:07 PM
This morning's only upper tier economic report, The Producer Price Index (PPI), came out a bit hotter than expected with a fairly significant revision...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 10:40 AM
“My dog is really worried about the rising price of groceries, with a can of dog food now costing $3. That’s $21 in dog money.” As I travel and speak ...
Wed, Oct 11 2023, 10:27 AM
A reduction in adjustable mortgage rates led some cost-stressed borrowers to forsake fixed-rate security and drove mortgage application volume up slig...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 4:40 PM
The average mortgage lender is quoting a top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate that is nearly a quarter of a percent lower than the same scenario last Fri...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 4:32 PM
Rate Rally More to Do With Fed or Flight to Safety?
Bonds rallied fairly sharply to start the holiday-shorte...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 12:13 PM
News of the Hamas bombing of Israel dominated headlines after markets closed last week. As the situation escalated over the weekend, financial market...
Tue, Oct 10 2023, 10:26 AM
“I dance like people wish they weren't watching.” Someone sure is watching, and counting, empty houses. Lack of available housing inventory has helped...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 7:06 PM
Rates were already high coming into this week. As of last Friday, that meant an average 30yr fixed rate just under 7.5%. As of this Friday, we're clos...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 4:33 PM
Logical Reaction to Jobs Data, But Why The Mid-Day Bounce?
Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP), the headline component of...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 11:18 AM
This week has brought a series of fairly simple mornings with the initial reaction to economic reports playing out in a logical direction. Monday: st...
Fri, Oct 6 2023, 10:43 AM
National MI turned heads yesterday by announcing its temporary increase to AUS conforming loan amounts, despite the official FHFA word not coming unti...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 4:17 PM
Thursday's Rally Changes Nothing Ahead of Jobs Report
While bonds definitely had a logical reaction to this ...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 3:33 PM
For the first time in nearly a month, the bond market (which dictates day to day mortgage rate movement) managed to string together two winning days i...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 12:16 PM
Time for another installment of "finding a narrative to fit the price action." In other words, bonds aren't doing what we'd expect based on this morn...
Thu, Oct 5 2023, 10:04 AM
Hal M. writes, “Monday is a holiday. The observance reminded me of the small Italian parade we had in Maine on Columbus Day. All the marchers were und...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 4:25 PM
Mortgage rates began the day at new multi-decade highs, but only by a small margin over yesterday. This was counterintuitive at first glance because ...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 4:15 PM
Surprisingly Calm and Logical Rally
Today's economic data came in either flat or noticeably weaker depending...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 12:01 PM
Bonds had a scary overnight session with 10s hitting highs of 4.884 around 3am ET. They rallied a full 15bps over the next 6 hours, most recently wit...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 10:27 AM
I head to Vancouver, WA, this morning for a Banner Bank event and will probably have the option of Wi-Fi on the plane. How is it that NASA is able to ...
Wed, Oct 4 2023, 9:07 AM
As mortgage rates continued to climb, mortgage applications took their biggest hit since mid-April. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Ma...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 3:27 PM
Mortgage rates were already close to the highest levels in more than 20 years yesterday--an unpleasant milestone that was easily surpassed after today...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 3:26 PM
"Higher For Longer" Fears Becoming a Reality After JOLTS
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) ...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 1:24 PM
A tempest in a teapot or the start of an uprising? Redfin, the publicly owned Seattle-based real estate company with 50 offices nationwide, announced ...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 11:25 AM
In the wake of the Fed announcement from 2 weeks ago, one key component of our bearish thesis was that bonds had to brace for the potential impact tha...
Tue, Oct 3 2023, 11:00 AM
How will you always know that this Commentary is not produced by some AI thingy? Because of mistakes like yesterday, leaving Illinois off the list of ...
Mon, Oct 2 2023, 4:39 PM
The average didn't quite make it back to the multidecade highs seen last week, but the average borrower would see little--if any--difference in today'...
Mon, Oct 2 2023, 4:39 PM
Bonds Blasted by Data and Stop-Gap
The stop-gap bill that averted the government shutdown was worth some ins...
