Fri, Sep 11 2020, 8:15 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) continued to drop in August, an indication that lending standards...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 6:03 PM
It's Thursday and thus time, once again, for the weekly mortgage rate survey from Freddie Mac. News organizations and even some bond market strategist...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 4:55 PM
Lock Decisions Still Hinge on Adverse Market Fee
The bond market had a decent showing today, ultimately rall...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 10:28 AM
Central banks are engaging in unprecedented levels of stimulus and transparency. The US is one of the worst offenders, spending at a record pace whil...
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 9:14 AM
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the line my dog learned the noise the cheese grater makes when I pull it out of the drawer....
Thu, Sep 10 2020, 8:22 AM
Fannie Mae says its Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) which, before a slight setback in July, had been rebounding strongly from its April COVID-19 ...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 3:44 PM
Mortgage rates haven't moved much so far this week and they were surprisingly steady at the end of last week despite volatility in the underlying bond...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 3:09 PM
It Could Have Been a Lot Worse
Although the bond market definitely had its own reasons to weaken last Friday...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 11:39 AM
Tom Petty sang, “There's somethin' good comin,' just over the hill, somethin' good comin', I know it will. And I'm in for the long run, wherever it go...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 10:15 AM
While servicing income was down, independent mortgage banks (IMBs) and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks had a very profitable second quarter. ...
Wed, Sep 9 2020, 8:11 AM
The volume of mortgage applications reversed direction last week, pulling out a small gain after three straight weeks of declines. The Mortgage Banker...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 4:40 PM
Stock Market Weakness To The Rescue
Last Friday tied August 11th as the worst day of since early June. It w...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 11:58 AM
The second quarter of this year was a miserable on many levels, but mortgage origination volume was not one of them. Black Knight's current Mortgage M...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 9:08 AM
Up until last Friday, bonds had improved decisively for 5 consecutive days. It's fairly rare to see these sorts of winning streaks last more than 5 d...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 8:53 AM
On one hand we have the old adage, “No tree grows to the moon.” On the other hand, MLOs and real estate agents are licking their chops given that 52 p...
Tue, Sep 8 2020, 8:19 AM
Mortgage delinquencies spiked in June and the serious delinquency rate, loans 90 or more days past due but not in foreclosure, reached its highest lev...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 4:31 PM
Perfect Storm in Bonds Pushing Yields Quickly Higher
Between the 5-day rally running the risk of getting tir...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 4:25 PM
Almost everywhere you look, low mortgage rates are in the news. Experts are claiming they'll remain low or move lower for years to come. They might be...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 10:39 AM
As we head toward the Autumnal Equinox on 9/22, places like Seattle and Minneapolis are losing four minutes of sunlight a day. Something else that is ...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 9:36 AM
Due to the "anything can happen" nature of financial markets AND the fact that traders can trade what we can predict, I rarely take an unequivocal sta...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 9:34 AM
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been on a two-month enforcement tear aimed at mortgage lenders employing deceptive practices in th...
Fri, Sep 4 2020, 9:22 AM
The number of homeowners with mortgages in COVID-19 related forbearance plans dropped during the week ended September 1 after several weeks when there...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 4:58 PM
Lock vs Float Considerations Ahead of NFP and Holiday Weekend
Bonds did well at face value today, but there ...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 3:41 PM
Mortgage rates have improved nicely over the past week. While a lot of this improvement is due to the delay of the new refinance fee announced earlier...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 10:54 AM
“It was the third of September, that day I’ll always remember , yes I will… Wherever he laid his hat was his home… And when he died, all he left us wa...
Thu, Sep 3 2020, 9:34 AM
The premise for today is remarkably simple. In fact, it really doesn't need many words by the time you see the first chart. After Powell and the F...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 3:57 PM
Mortgage rates have improved noticeably in the past few business days, largely due to the delay of a new fee announced earlier this month. Ironically,...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 3:40 PM
Bonds Confirm The Breakout, But There Are 2 Ways to Play It
Today offers firm confirmation of the range brea...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 10:21 AM
I don’t know whether my Nolan Ryan rookie card, fortuitously spared from my bike spokes decades ago, is worth $500 or the 10 cents I spent for the pac...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 9:20 AM
If you're like me, your initial impression of the financial market is that it's "thing" with a mind of its own-- always on , always moving, with thous...
Wed, Sep 2 2020, 8:19 AM
Mortgage applications, both for home purchase and refinancing, declined for the third straight time during the week ended August 28. The Mortgage Bank...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 4:22 PM
For most lenders, mortgage rates improved again today, adding to the 3-week lows achieved yesterday. We normally view mortgage rate movement primarily...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 4:21 PM
Construction spending as a whole was essentially flat in July, but residential spending showed significant growth. The U.S. Census Bureau reported tha...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 4:05 PM
New Month, New Trend?
We often see a clear bias toward strength or weakness during any given month in the bo...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 12:10 PM
It has been rumored since the first wave of the coronavirus struck in some of the densely populated urban centers, especially in New York and New Jers...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 12:03 PM
Home prices grew in July by the fastest rate in nearly two years, a 5.5 percent annual gain. According to CoreLogic's Home Price Index (HPI), the mont...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 11:05 AM
There’s a fine joke about bowling balls and tennis balls and golf balls which I won’t repeat here, but let’s go down the scale of “numerical magnitude...
Tue, Sep 1 2020, 9:06 AM
While it's definitely not a hard and fast rule, we often see a clear bias toward strength or weakness during any given month in the bond market. July...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 3:47 PM
Mortgage rates improved nicely today with the average lender more convincingly back under the 3.0% threshold for conventional 30yr fixed scenarios. In...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 3:44 PM
Bonds Making Case For Friendly Technical Bounce
Last Friday, we were already eyeing the technical ceiling at...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 1:26 PM
A recent posting on the Urban Institute's (UI's) Urban Wire blog touched on six facts about the mortgage forbearance option mandated by the CARES Act ...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 10:10 AM
No one owns a crystal ball. It seems that the best LOs and CEOs keep up on the news and trends but focus on helping borrowers one at a time, regardles...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 9:28 AM
Just like early June, we're once again forced to consider that several weeks of upward movement in yields means the lows are behind us for now. Just ...
Mon, Aug 31 2020, 8:20 AM
Any decline in the number of mortgages in forbearance appears to have, at least temporarily, reached a plateau. For the second straight week Black Kni...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 4:55 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move much today, and the direction of that movement depends greatly on how any given lender reacted to the week's big news from ...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 4:45 PM
Nice Recovery Today, But Is It a Trap?
If the Fed is doubling down on its inflation goals, it makes sense fo...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 11:13 AM
Both government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have announced that their nationwide suspension of single-family foreclosures and evictions has been exte...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 10:37 AM
I remember when I would travel to exotic places like London, England, Lima, Peru, or Biloxi, Mississippi. From Southern California, thank you to Carey...
Fri, Aug 28 2020, 10:06 AM
Yesterday was "interesting," to say the least. The Fed surprised markets with another unscheduled policy update and bonds traded accordingly. The su...
Thu, Aug 27 2020, 3:46 PM
Let's keep this short and simple. There are some major misconceptions out there today and for many of you, it's very important to address them. What a...
