Thu, Sep 24 2020, 8:59 AM
I need to make a dart board for the wall behind me for Zoom calls that has “rates up” and “rates down” and “rates the same” on it. Until we see actual...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 4:16 PM
Mortgage rates didn't do much today. The average lender was effectively unchanged from yesterday. The same could be said yesterday, and the day before...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 4:05 PM
Stocks Try to Help, But Bonds Stay Relentlessly Flat
Econ data, Treasury auctions and Fed speakers all faile...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 3:56 PM
Mark Calabria, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is stepping up his agency's actions to spring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSE...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 3:53 PM
Home prices rose another 1.0 percent in July, bringing the year-over-year gain to 6.5 percent according to the House Price Index (HPI) produced by the...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 9:35 AM
Mortgage application activity rebounded last week from the previous week's Labor Day holiday lull. The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Market C...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 9:25 AM
You know times are tough in the world of bond market analysis when I resort to using an uninspired bullet point list of events for a headline. The on...
Wed, Sep 23 2020, 8:54 AM
I know that plenty of folks at United Wholesale read this commentary, and the company is in the news about a merger that will take UWM public valuing ...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 4:55 PM
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the two government sponsored agencies that guarantee timely payment of principal and interest to the investors who fron...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 4:37 PM
Stocks vs Bonds; Bonds vs Supply
There's a fairly strong case to be made for stock market weakness helpin...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 11:26 AM
Existing home sales continued on a roll for the third consecutive month, hitting the highest level in August since December 2006. The National Associa...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 10:24 AM
There was another big surge in the amount of equity on the balance sheets of American homeowners in the second quarter of this year. CoreLogic reports...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 10:04 AM
Remember simpler times when following interest rate movements meant waiting for economic data to come out and counting on logical, repeatable, predict...
Tue, Sep 22 2020, 9:11 AM
Today (Tuesday), while Washington DC “sucks the air out of the room,” welcome to the Autumn Solstice (Equinox) in the U.S., the day when the Sun appea...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 3:35 PM
Stocks vs Bonds; Bonds vs Supply
There's a fairly strong case to be made for stock market weakness helpin...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 11:31 AM
Fannie Mae has upgraded its forecast for the third quarter gross domestic product (GDP). It now expects growth at an annualized pace of 30.4 percent ,...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 10:24 AM
If you watch the news long enough, you see all kinds of interesting things. Cracker Barrel is adding alcohol to its menu? Yup! And you must watch this...
Mon, Sep 21 2020, 10:06 AM
One of my favorite pastimes is debunking the notion that stock prices and bonds yields 'always' correlate. Years of indoctrination from the conventio...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 5:38 PM
Mortgage rates are most influenced by the bond market and the bond market is most influenced by the Federal Reserve (aka "The Fed"). So when the Fed s...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 5:30 PM
Range Trading Settling in For Long(er) Haul
With no significant bond market volatility in response to this w...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 12:40 PM
One out of every 15 home sales in the second quarter of the year were defined as "flips" by ATTOM Data Solutions. A flip is any arms-length transactio...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 12:37 PM
There was a fourth straight decline in the number of mortgage loans in forbearance during the week ended September 15. Black Knight says the total dro...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 12:30 PM
The refinance share of loans originated in August rebounded slightly from July levels as interest rates fell to the lowest in Ellie Mae's history. The...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 9:47 AM
Tossed coconut salad... Fresh coconut milk... New England boiled coconut... There were only so many menu choices for Yosemite Sam working with one i...
Fri, Sep 18 2020, 9:15 AM
Before the pandemic I used to spin that toilet paper roll like I was on Wheel of Fortune. In March and April I turned it like I was cracking a safe. N...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 4:56 PM
Yesterday's policy announcement from the Federal Reserve had a chance to cause significant volatility for the bond market and the bond market is the c...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 4:06 PM
Still Waiting on Bonds to Attempt a Range Breakout
Yesterday's Fed announcement managed to deliver the bare ...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 11:46 AM
Residential construction activity took a breather in August. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported this ...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 9:44 AM
Yesterday's Fed announcement managed to deliver the bare minimum of the market's expectations and underdeliver on fairly reasonable hopes. That res...
Thu, Sep 17 2020, 9:00 AM
Why is it that every time I call some place, I hear the recording, “Wait times to speak to a representative are longer than normal.”? Why can’t I ever...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 4:43 PM
What Did The Fed Actually Change?
Here are the most notable changes:
The vague notion of symmetric 2 per...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 4:22 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) set a new high this month, breaking a record that it set only ...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 2:06 PM
The Federal Reserve is committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time, thereby promoting its maximum ...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 10:15 AM
The Fed Funds futures market sees the Fed holding pat on rates well into 2022. What could cause rates to go up? A vaccine. Until definitive news like ...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 10:03 AM
Coronavirus is responsible for many "firsts." Apart from the obvious impact on daily life there are firsts for the economy and monetary policy as wel...
Wed, Sep 16 2020, 8:33 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports that mortgage applications declined during the week ending September 11, 2020. The week's results inclu...
Tue, Sep 15 2020, 4:21 PM
What will the Fed do to mortgage rates ? This is actually a bit of a trick question . The Fed doesn't set mortgage rates. The Fed's policy rate applie...
Tue, Sep 15 2020, 3:54 PM
Locking vs Floating Ahead of Potentially Big Fed Announcement
First thing's first: if you haven't seen the a...
Tue, Sep 15 2020, 10:46 AM
In August, we witnessed a rapid acceleration in expectations for the Fed's long-awaited inflation framework shift. Although it seemed rather precipit...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 4:42 PM
Small Scale Volatility In The Bigger Picture
The adverse market fee continues to dominate lock/float conside...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 2:01 PM
Mortgage lenders had an excellent second quarter in terms of profitability according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and Fannie Mae's Lender Sent...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 9:34 AM
Bonds have been consolidating aggressively for an entire month . 10yr yields have been perfectly contained between 0.63 and 0.73 with one brief occa...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 9:27 AM
People can accomplish a lot in a day. And lenders are continuing to hire like mad dogs (if mad dogs had HR departments), especially non-bank lenders. ...
Mon, Sep 14 2020, 9:15 AM
It was a phenomenon 12 years ago that ended with a huge decline in homeownership among Millennials, and now it is happening, for the same reason to Ge...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 5:10 PM
If you're in the mortgage process currently or if you will be soon, there is a tremendously important development to be aware of. The net effect is th...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 5:05 PM
Lock Decisions Still Hinge on Adverse Market Fee
Without any significant volatility in the bond market, mort...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 1:12 PM
Freddie Mac's Mortgage Market Survey published yesterday reported a 7-basis point decline in the 30-year mortgage rate over the previous week and repo...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 11:02 AM
The number of loans in forbearance continued to dwindle over the last week, with almost 66,000 fewer homeowners in plans. Over the last 30 days the de...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 9:39 AM
There's nothing quite like the visual (and visceral) impact of opening up MBS Live in the morning only to see a big drop in the blue line. Today is o...
Fri, Sep 11 2020, 9:08 AM
Plenty of people tell me that I should “head down to Clown Town.” I never know quite how to take that. But now we have Zoom Towns ,” and thank you to ...
