Wed, Nov 13 2019, 8:57 AM
I continue to see headlines as I head to balmy Kansas today. There was, “A Court Ruling Makes Mortgages Vanish Into Thin Air.” This is a headline no l...
Wed, Nov 13 2019, 8:35 AM
Access to government loans continues to decline, but conventional and jumbo loans picked up the slack in October, pushing the Mortgage Credit Availabi...
Wed, Nov 13 2019, 8:26 AM
Once again the "Good Time to Buy" component of Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) is on the decline. Net positive answers to that quest...
Wed, Nov 13 2019, 8:07 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said application activity during the week ended November 8 was the strongest since late September , with both p...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 5:01 PM
There are all kinds of bonds out there. We follow the 10yr Treasury even though this is a mortgage-specific site for reasons outlined here. Beyond T...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 5:00 PM
Mortgage rates had a bad October . November hasn't exactly been great either, with last Thursday being one of the worst days of the year in terms of d...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 11:10 AM
A securities expert told an audience at the National Association of Realtors' (NAR's) annual conference that cybercrimes against real estate agents an...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 9:44 AM
1.90% has been the most important, most dangerous ceiling for 10yr Treasury yields ever since a nasty selling spree stalled out there exactly 2 months...
Tue, Nov 12 2019, 8:38 AM
Everyone has a different opinion about the economy. “Nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong” or “Everybody’s right (eventually), if nobody’s wrong.” How...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 4:17 PM
Mortgage rates launched to their highest levels in more than 3 months yesterday for a variety of reasons. Chief among them was a series of comments fr...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 2:01 PM
One year after hitting a ten-year low, housing affordability has risen to its highest level in three years. Rose Quint, writing in the National Associ...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 12:12 PM
The share of first-time buyers remains well below historic levels according to the National Association of Realtors' ® (NAR's) 2019 Profile of Home Bu...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 9:12 AM
If you don't expect anything good to happen for the bond market for the next few months, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. If, however, you expe...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 8:37 AM
As rumors swirl about Michael Bloomberg entering the race for president, MLOs are winding down for the year (a few have written to me saying that, aft...
Fri, Nov 8 2019, 8:04 AM
The storm is over, the fires are out, but anyone who has survived a natural disaster, and that is more of us every year, knows that the problems are j...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 6:21 PM
It was a big, bad day for the bond market, although the size of the thing ended up getting pared down just a bit in the afternoon. Chalk that up to a...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 5:29 PM
Mortgage rates surged higher at a rapid pace for the second time this week. Taken together, the jump is the biggest of its kind since the big rate spi...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 11:29 AM
Are home price increases cranking up again? The quarterly report from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) on existing home sales and metropoli...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 10:37 AM
Yesterday brought a brief reprieve for bonds after the first 2 days of the week threatened to confirm a big picture shift toward higher rates (or at l...
Thu, Nov 7 2019, 9:00 AM
Thanksgiving will be here before you know it, and with it, pumpkin pie. (Yes, I know that this is a mortgage commentary, but even pumpkins have their ...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 5:31 PM
Today's 10yr Treasury auction brought strong demand . Across the board, the auction stats were much stronger than expected. The only real problem w...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 5:12 PM
Mortgage rates were sharply higher yesterday , but managed to reverse course and make some gains today. The refreshing part of the improvement was tha...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 11:08 AM
It may come as a surprise to some, but the Census Bureau says the housing cost burden for homeowners has been getting lighter. The Bureau's American C...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 9:46 AM
Yesterday was a big, bad day for the bond market with the hotly-anticipated ISM Non-Manufacturing data coming in much stronger than expected. Bonds c...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 8:58 AM
Besides sudden news, like PennyMac filing an antitrust lawsuit against Black Knight for anticompetitive behavior (“…market-dominating LoanSphere® MSP ...
Wed, Nov 6 2019, 8:25 AM
Mortgage activity was little changed during the week ended November 1 as interest rates continued to bounce around. The Mortgage Bankers Association (...
Tue, Nov 5 2019, 6:29 PM
Heading into last week's Fed announcement and economic data, the analysis was starting to get a bit gloomy. It wasn't the first time I talked about...
Tue, Nov 5 2019, 6:07 PM
Mortgage rates were flat yesterday , but I warned that volatility could increase today. That turned out to be an understatement. Mortgage rates shot h...
Tue, Nov 5 2019, 8:52 AM
Bonds had a reasonably rough day yesterday, but most of the weakness was reserved for Treasuries. MBS managed to escape with minimal damage. There w...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 7:09 PM
Treasuries tanked today and there were none of the sort of obvious catalysts you'd hope to see. I checked my math on that with people smarter than me...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 6:00 PM
Mortgage rates were flat to slightly higher today after dropping at fairly quick pace last week. In fact, if we're only examining one-day changes in r...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 11:44 AM
Apple has joined other high-tech giants in a commitment to help alleviate a problem partially of their own making. On Monday, the Cupertino, Californi...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 10:23 AM
For some reason, I feel like the 2nd half of 2018 has been one of the most legitimately uncertain eras of bond trading in the post-crisis market envir...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 8:50 AM
Who says there’s nothing new under the sun? Here’s a 14-year old’s clever cure for the blind spot in cars . Uber launched a new division known as Uber...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 8:23 AM
While mortgage performance continues to be the best in many years , with the national delinquency rate down to 3.53 percent and record low foreclosure...
Mon, Nov 4 2019, 8:08 AM
Total expenditures on construction in the U.S. moved slightly higher in September but is lagging behind year-earlier figures. The annual losses are co...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 5:24 PM
Bonds were stronger overnight, riding a wave of buying demand on the heels of yesterday's weak econ data and US/China trade deal uncertainty. Some ma...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates held steady today after moving sharply lower yesterday. "Sharply," in this context, means that many lenders saw rates move lower by as ...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 9:41 AM
Bonds rallied big yesterday on a combination of factors. These included a rejection of the Trump administration's claimed timeline for the US/China t...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 9:02 AM
Welcome to “Bring Your Kid’s Candy to Work” Day, when candy bowls at receptionist’s desks and lunchrooms are brimming with treats worth a gander. What...
Fri, Nov 1 2019, 8:25 AM
Freddie Mac's end-of-the-month forecast for October was exceptionally brief, perhaps in recognition that it has all been said before. The economy is s...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 5:59 PM
Most of the month of October was rotten for the bond market. Material progress on the trade deal, a leveling-off of economic data deterioration, and ...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 5:10 PM
Mortgage rates dropped like a rock today . This has absolutely nothing to do with yesterday's Fed rate cut, a little to do with the market reaction to...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 11:55 AM
Both of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) posted strong earnings in the third quarter of the year. Freddie Mac announced comprehensive incom...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 9:06 AM
Halloween already! Who wouldn’t want to live in the scary Tombstone, AZ, Sleepy Hollow, NY, Kill Devil Hills, NC, Yellville, AR, Transylvania County, ...
Thu, Oct 31 2019, 8:35 AM
Chicago PMI isn't always more important that PCE inflation. After all Core PCE is the Fed's favorite big-picture inflation reading (the thing they wa...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 3:52 PM
First things first: the Fed cut its policy rate today, but that doesn't mean they cut mortgage rates . Why? Because they can't and they don't--especia...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 2:07 PM
The Census Bureau reports that the homeownership rate, while up fractionally in the third quarter of this year compared to Quarter 2, was essentially ...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 2:02 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in July September indicates that the labor market remains strong and that economic...
Wed, Oct 30 2019, 10:08 AM
The bond market had a decent enough day yesterday as it managed to hold steady-to-slightly-stronger versus Monday's ugly closing levels. "Supply" (ak...
