Tue, Dec 10 2019, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates moved up modestly today as bond markets weakened in response to trade headlines. This week's key consideration on the trade front is wh...
Tue, Dec 10 2019, 10:55 AM
After a steep dive in October, America's attitude toward buying a home is on the rise again. Positive answers to the question of whether it is a good ...
Tue, Dec 10 2019, 9:26 AM
If you knew the value of the house was going to decline, or that the borrower has bad credit and would default, would you make the loan? There’s alway...
Tue, Dec 10 2019, 8:33 AM
In the grand scheme of things, today will likely be another placeholder of a day unless some unexpected (and fairly significant) trade war update happ...
Mon, Dec 9 2019, 2:58 PM
Mortgage rates reacted somewhat harshly to an incredibly strong jobs report last Friday. At the time, I noted that such a jobs report would typically ...
Mon, Dec 9 2019, 1:11 PM
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) released its annual Report to Congress several weeks ago, reporting significant improvement in its Mutual Mor...
Mon, Dec 9 2019, 9:49 AM
Black Knight continues to review, in its new Mortgage Monitor , how the effects of nearly a year of lower interest rates have ricocheted throughout th...
Mon, Dec 9 2019, 9:24 AM
With the Fed content with rates hovering here for the foreseeable future , lenders can focus on other things. "Rob, are you hearing that real estate a...
Mon, Dec 9 2019, 9:07 AM
It's been almost exactly 3 months since the quick rate spike in early September. That, of course, followed an impressive run to the lowest rates in m...
Fri, Dec 6 2019, 3:30 PM
This morning's commentary was titled "NFP Doesn't Matter (Even If It Looks Like It Does)." Apparently NFP didn't like being called out because it did...
Fri, Dec 6 2019, 1:45 PM
Mortgage rates were pushed higher for the 3rd day in a row following an incredibly strong jobs report. For decades, if you were to ask anyone with a r...
Fri, Dec 6 2019, 11:56 AM
For many years homebuyers looking for homes priced above entry level employed every device they could to keep their loan amount below whatever might b...
Fri, Dec 6 2019, 8:53 AM
I hope that you didn’t lay off your compliance department earlier this year, because there’s a lot going on. For example, from out of California comes...
Fri, Dec 6 2019, 8:31 AM
First Friday of the month, and thus time for the nonfarm payrolls (NFP) data. Also known simply as "the jobs report," no other piece of economic data...
Thu, Dec 5 2019, 5:41 PM
After the little bout of whipsaw volatility of the past 3 trading sessions, it will be a tall order for even the mighty NFP to move markets much tom...
Thu, Dec 5 2019, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates have seen a fair amount of volatility so far this week, dropping quickly on Tuesday and moving in the opposite direction since then. Be...
Thu, Dec 5 2019, 1:13 PM
After slowing for 17 months, home price gains rose 3.8 percent in July and then held nearly flat in August according to Black Knight's Home Price Inde...
Thu, Dec 5 2019, 10:35 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) moved significantly higher in November, gaining 2.1 percent compa...
Thu, Dec 5 2019, 10:33 AM
In the lending world, folks are talking about the change in FHA loan levels . Economists and investors have their eye on debt. Have a balance on your ...
Thu, Dec 5 2019, 9:48 AM
Bonds took Trump at his word in the wee hours of Tuesday morning with respect to waiting until Nov 2020 (or later) to finalize a trade deal with China...
Wed, Dec 4 2019, 4:28 PM
Bonds sold off clearly and somewhat abruptly following a Bloomberg article on the trade negotiations being in better shape than markets might assume b...
Wed, Dec 4 2019, 3:29 PM
Mortgage rates dropped sharply yesterday after having risen to the highest levels in 2 weeks the day before. Yesterday's culprit was trade war related...
Wed, Dec 4 2019, 2:43 PM
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner Brian D. Montgomery has announced the loan limits for FHA forward mortgages in 2020. The limits are ...
Wed, Dec 4 2019, 12:40 PM
There is widespread industry concern that new homes and apartment buildings are not being constructed fast enough to keep up with demand and now the N...
Wed, Dec 4 2019, 9:14 AM
Mortgage activity during the week ended November 29 was predictably impacted by the Thanksgiving Day holiday which effectively shortened the business ...
Wed, Dec 4 2019, 8:28 AM
Trade headlines rocked markets yesterday, making for the biggest single-day bond rally since early August--even after the gains moderated in the after...
Tue, Dec 3 2019, 5:36 PM
One short day after sending somewhat alarming signals about a move back up toward the top of the recent range, the bond market bounced back with a ven...
Tue, Dec 3 2019, 4:38 PM
Mortgage rates were up to the highest levels in 2 weeks yesterday, but that was then and this is now. In the wee hours of the morning, trade-related h...
Tue, Dec 3 2019, 1:54 PM
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHA) had to be bailed out by the U.S. Treasury during the financial crisis after its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fun...
Tue, Dec 3 2019, 11:13 AM
Home prices increased on an annual basis by 3.5 percent in October according to CoreLogic's Home Price Index (HPI). The index rose 0.2 percent from th...
Tue, Dec 3 2019, 9:39 AM
There’s an old saying among economists regarding predicting the future. “You can put a date on it, and you can put a number on it, but you can’t do bo...
Tue, Dec 3 2019, 9:03 AM
Yesterday saw bonds jump up to the highest yields in more than 2 weeks. Culprits were diverse, including stronger overseas econ data and new trading ...
Mon, Dec 2 2019, 4:11 PM
As the bond market shook off the holiday weekend lethargy and metaphorically (and literally) returned to the office, it was met with an immediate bar...
Mon, Dec 2 2019, 3:19 PM
Mortgage rates increased moderately to begin the new week/month and had been increasing in general during the previous week. The net effect is some le...
Mon, Dec 2 2019, 12:05 PM
The nation's total spending on construction projects was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.291 trillion in October, 1.1 percent higher than a...
Mon, Dec 2 2019, 10:10 AM
Welcome to the last few trading weeks of 2019--3 or them to be precise. After that, the Christmas and New Year holidays will mean we can't trust the ...
Mon, Dec 2 2019, 10:07 AM
We started this piece by noting that Freddie Mac's economists wrapped up November in an unusually brief summary. Then we realized we had said almost e...
Mon, Dec 2 2019, 8:14 AM
Did your company make any money in the 3rd quarter? I hope so, and I hope the 4th quarter is looking bright as well. (Just like I hope that MLOs on yo...
Fri, Nov 29 2019, 9:48 AM
Due to the holiday-shortened work week, today's economic calendar is empty and Wednesday's was about as clogged as it ever gets, with the following re...
Fri, Nov 29 2019, 8:53 AM
There are seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and each region has a President. For 2019, the annual salary for the ...
Wed, Nov 27 2019, 2:51 PM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 3.0 percent in October, down from 10.7 percent the...
Wed, Nov 27 2019, 2:38 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher today, leaving them roughly in the middle of November's narrow range. Although banks and many mortgage lenders wi...
Wed, Nov 27 2019, 10:13 AM
Pending home sales slipped in October after two months of solid gains. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said its Pending Home Sale Index (P...
Wed, Nov 27 2019, 9:18 AM
Loan officers know that rent is a “piece of the puzzle,” “a part of the equation” in the homebuying decision. They should be glad to know that the typ...
Wed, Nov 27 2019, 8:11 AM
Joel Kan, Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting for the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says low rates are continuing to ke...
Tue, Nov 26 2019, 5:24 PM
For those of you who are MBS Live members, yes, the recap title is the same as the MBS Huddle. Sorry for the lack of creativity, but this is an unins...
Tue, Nov 26 2019, 4:31 PM
Mortgage rates recovered today after moving higher for the first time in nearly 2 weeks yesterday. In the bigger picture, rates have been in a back-an...
Tue, Nov 26 2019, 11:55 AM
The conforming loan limit for most of the U.S. will, quite predictably, move higher on January 1. The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced on Tues...
Tue, Nov 26 2019, 10:56 AM
The headline for the new home sales report for October was the year-over-year increase in sales. While sales of newly constructed homes were actually ...
Tue, Nov 26 2019, 10:28 AM
While it is only incremental, home price increases appear to have stopped decelerating and are again creeping slowly upward . Both the S&P CoreLogic C...
