Tue, Feb 4 2020, 9:32 AM
In many respects, the market response to the coronavirus outbreak has been able to take cues from past experience with SARS in 2002/2003. In many oth...
Tue, Feb 4 2020, 9:02 AM
Fitness instructor: “Have you ever done a marathon?” Me: “You mean like on Netflix?” Both take stamina (of some sort), as does merely looking at the U...
Mon, Feb 3 2020, 6:28 PM
Today's key scheduled event was the release of the ISM Manufacturing PMI--one of the several most important reports after the perennial heavy hitter, ...
Mon, Feb 3 2020, 5:39 PM
In the world of interest rates, it's good to be a mortgage today . The dominant species on that world is US Treasuries: the quintessential dollar-base...
Mon, Feb 3 2020, 12:44 PM
Total construction spending ended 2019 down slightly from the prior year. The U.S. Census Bureau said the total value of construction, both public and...
Mon, Feb 3 2020, 10:22 AM
Black Knight, it the current edition of its Mortgage Monitor covering December mortgage performance data, writes an epitaph for slowing home price app...
Mon, Feb 3 2020, 9:18 AM
The total count of confirmed coronavirus cases will continue to grow for quite some time (several months, perhaps). Markets and epidemiologists alike...
Mon, Feb 3 2020, 8:57 AM
“I boarded a Southwest flight over the weekend, sat down, sneezed, and muttered something in Mandarin. I had the whole row to myself for entire flight...
Fri, Jan 31 2020, 6:43 PM
The homeownership rate seems stubbornly stuck only a few percentage points from where it bottomed out in the second quarter of 2016. The U.S. Census B...
Fri, Jan 31 2020, 6:07 PM
When the World Health Organization declared coronavirus an international health emergency yesterday, there were two schools of thought. At first glan...
Fri, Jan 31 2020, 5:38 PM
Mortgage rates inched even lower today as the market resumed efforts to react to and account for risks surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. Weaker ec...
Fri, Jan 31 2020, 9:12 AM
Yesterday offered up a fairly intense trading session for the bond market. Yields moved to the lowest levels in months with 10yr Treasuries hitting 1...
Fri, Jan 31 2020, 9:02 AM
Interesting times. Our CFPB has a new Chief Experience Officer . United Wholesale has an ad in the Super Bowl , recommending brokers to consumers. Exp...
Thu, Jan 30 2020, 3:11 PM
Mortgage rates improved again today as the market continued to react to updates on the coronavirus outbreak. For top tier scenarios, the average lende...
Thu, Jan 30 2020, 12:05 PM
In the throes of the housing crisis, it sometimes seemed as though FHA was the only way to finance a home purchase , especially for those with less th...
Thu, Jan 30 2020, 10:35 AM
With the Fed out of the way, coronavirus cases still growing rapidly, and no major correction seen in the bond market, the question on everyone's mind...
Thu, Jan 30 2020, 9:00 AM
What if you bought into an investment thinking you were going to earn a decent return for 30 years and instead it paid off in four months? Not only th...
Thu, Jan 30 2020, 8:51 AM
Homeownership is apparently still one of the best ways to build wealth. The Year-End Home Sales Report from ATTOM Data Solutions shows that the typica...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 5:08 PM
It's fashionable to criticize Fed Chair Powell for negatively affecting the bond market during his customary press conference on Fed Announcement da...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 4:37 PM
Mortgage rates regained their footing today, moving back to long-term lows after pausing to move slightly higher yesterday. The definition of "long-te...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 2:02 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in OctoberDecember indicates that the labor market remains strong and that economic a...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 10:35 AM
December's pending home sales erased the small gain posted in November and the National Association of Realtors' (NAR's) Pending Home Sales Index (PHS...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 9:39 AM
Imagine a world where the Federal Reserve was here to entertain and comment on sports betting rather than offer dry, carefully worded updates on monet...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 9:25 AM
Bonds are holding below what had been a yield floor since mid-October. Yesterday raised some concern about the recently stronger trend reversing, but...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 9:08 AM
My cat Myrtle never paid much attention to Brexit, up until recently a hopeless parliamentary quagmire. (“Brexistential fear”: An irrational fear that...
Wed, Jan 29 2020, 8:14 AM
Refinancing continues to dominate mortgage activity, spurred by another dip in mortgage rates. The Mortgage Banker Association (MBA) said the volume o...
Tue, Jan 28 2020, 5:18 PM
Stocks moved higher today and bond yields did the same. Given that coronavirus has been the key consideration for both sides of the market, the movem...
Tue, Jan 28 2020, 4:28 PM
Mortgage rates were steady to slightly higher today, leaving the average lender just a hair above the lowest rates in months, and still very close to ...
Tue, Jan 28 2020, 11:39 AM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 15.2 percent in December, a substantial change fro...
Tue, Jan 28 2020, 10:42 AM
The recent re-acceleration of home price gains continued in November. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index which covers all n...
Tue, Jan 28 2020, 8:50 AM
Loan officers and lenders know that the population in the United States continues to shift, and this creates some continued great opportunities to inc...
Tue, Jan 28 2020, 8:44 AM
Bonds finally broke out of one of their prevailing ranges yesterday as Wuhan virus fears reached a new level. Some may roll their eyes at this sort o...
Mon, Jan 27 2020, 5:05 PM
Mortgage rates continued lower to start the week as Wuhan Virus continues to be diagnosed at an exponential rate. As we discussed last week, interest ...
Mon, Jan 27 2020, 10:58 AM
A lot of expectations and optimism were probably dashed by the December report on new home sales from the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and ...
Mon, Jan 27 2020, 9:45 AM
Last week was really the first truly interesting week of 2020 (and arguably of the past several months) as far as the prevailing range in the bond mar...
Mon, Jan 27 2020, 8:23 AM
Remember when there actually was an “average,” and you weren’t afraid to say that someone was average? Now everyone is “above average.” (Did my sarcas...
Fri, Jan 24 2020, 6:06 PM
We had to wait all the way until January 24th of 2020, but bonds finally offered their first real shred of willingness to challenge the established ra...
Fri, Jan 24 2020, 5:25 PM
Mortgage rates moved meaningfully lower over the past 2 days as panic over the coronavirus outbreak continues affecting financial markets. If this epi...
Fri, Jan 24 2020, 10:49 AM
As the week comes to a close, we find bonds continuing to trickle toward the lower end of the range that has prevailed for nearly 3 months. In terms ...
Fri, Jan 24 2020, 9:44 AM
Paying bills on time is about to become more important for American consumers, and this as their debt levels are reaching new highs. Fair Isaac Corpor...
Fri, Jan 24 2020, 8:37 AM
Yes, the change in FICO scores garnered some attention, but much of the focus is on Wells Fargo which just can’t stay out of the spotlight… for all th...
Thu, Jan 23 2020, 1:14 PM
The average interest rate on closed loans inched up in December and the share of those loans that were for refinancing moved lower. Ellie Mae's Origin...
Thu, Jan 23 2020, 10:25 AM
Even though many of the measures are already at record lows, mortgage delinquencies continue to tick downward according to Black Knight's "first look"...
Thu, Jan 23 2020, 10:20 AM
Did you know that you can vote by smart phone in Seattle ? Did you know that less than 20 percent of the world's population has ever taken a single fl...
Thu, Jan 23 2020, 9:13 AM
The bond market--widely expected to have been launching yields up and over 2% in 2020--is instead in the process of testing it's best levels since ear...
Wed, Jan 22 2020, 4:22 PM
Mortgage rates remained in line with 3-month lows today for the average lender. Several lenders offered marginally better terms compared to yesterday,...
Wed, Jan 22 2020, 11:00 AM
Existing home sales rose convincingly in December, gaining 3.6 percent compared to sales the prior month. Sales of all existing home types , single-fa...
Wed, Jan 22 2020, 9:56 AM
The annual rate of home price increases continued at a stable rate in November according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), however there a...
Wed, Jan 22 2020, 9:51 AM
You know things are bad when I resort to invoking Kierkegaard in bond market commentary, but that's what it's come to. Our quest to observe something...
Wed, Jan 22 2020, 9:08 AM
What does $4.6 billion dollars buy you these days? A couple casinos: a Blackstone-sponsored JV is paying that for MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay in Las Ve...
