Fri, Feb 8 2019, 6:05 PM
The bond market is exuding a sort of confidence we've not seen in a long time. I'm not saying that because outright rate levels are lower than they...
Fri, Feb 8 2019, 5:36 PM
Mortgage rates may not be quite as low as they were on January 31st, but they nonetheless managed to end at the lowest levels of this week . Unlike Ja...
Fri, Feb 8 2019, 11:08 AM
The second proposal for reform of the housing finance system in a week was just introduced by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). Their "visi...
Fri, Feb 8 2019, 9:52 AM
Whereas "moving the goalposts" has a negative connotation in general (referring to the changing of the rules in the middle of the game), it's a fairly...
Fri, Feb 8 2019, 9:11 AM
Here’s some trivia for today’s potluck in the Shipping Department: Las Vegas has 150,000 hotel rooms and spending a night in each would take you 411 y...
Thu, Feb 7 2019, 6:48 PM
2014 was marked by a sense of hope that helped both sides of the market (debt and equity) make solid gains heading into early 2015. Rates in the US...
Thu, Feb 7 2019, 5:37 PM
Thursday plays host to vastly more mortgage rate articles than any other day of the week. This has to do with the regular weekly release of Freddie Ma...
Thu, Feb 7 2019, 1:35 PM
Respondents to Fannie Mae's January National Housing Survey adopted a new outlook to go along with the new year, primarily in responses about their pe...
Thu, Feb 7 2019, 10:37 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a measure of access to mortgage credit, partially rebounded from...
Thu, Feb 7 2019, 10:12 AM
If you thought last week's Fed announcement was surprisingly dovish/friendly/concerned, you weren't alone. Compared to the "steady-as-she-goes" Decem...
Thu, Feb 7 2019, 9:25 AM
Guys – here’s your one-week warning for Valentine’s Day. In related news, countless scientific studies have proven that a male human being is incapabl...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 3:20 PM
If you're operating under the assumption that the prevailing momentum in bond markets is sideways for the time being, today offered few surprises. In...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 2:47 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower for the second straight day after rising moderately on Friday and Monday. This brings the average lender to the second lowe...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 12:03 PM
In their December Insight report Freddie Mac's economists estimated the country will fall short of its housing needs this year by about 2.5 million un...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 9:14 AM
One of the best side effects of the recent consolidation has been the outperformance of MBS vs Treasuries. We often talk about the fact that MBS like...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 9:03 AM
Fun with numbers! Here’s something interesting in the finance world: The number of public companies in the U.S. has decreased by almost 50% from 1996 ...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 8:28 AM
We usually hear about Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey (NHS) in terms of whether respondents think it is a good time to buy or if they see the eco...
Wed, Feb 6 2019, 8:14 AM
Mortgage applications suffered their third consecutive decline during the week ended February 1. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Marke...
Tue, Feb 5 2019, 5:24 PM
An interesting thing happened today for those who were paying close enough attention to notice. At face value the week's most important economic repo...
Tue, Feb 5 2019, 5:03 PM
Mortgage rates stabilized today, after moving higher somewhat quickly following several strong economic reports on Friday. If you'd like to revisit th...
Tue, Feb 5 2019, 11:57 AM
The CoreLogic Home Price Index puts the annual rate of appreciation nationally at 4.7 percent in December and the gain from November 2018 to December ...
Tue, Feb 5 2019, 9:53 AM
This is a concept we've revisited a few times over the years and it goes something like this:
A strengthening economy implies rising earnings/profi...
Tue, Feb 5 2019, 8:55 AM
The other day I was on a Southwest flight and I noticed someone on the aisle seat crumple up a couple of unused tissues and put them on the empty midd...
Mon, Feb 4 2019, 4:30 PM
Chinese markets were closed overnight for New Year. This slowed trade somewhat. Coupled with a lack of significant economic data this morning, it al...
Mon, Feb 4 2019, 4:08 PM
Mortgage rates continued moving higher today as Fridays unfortunate series of events seems to have motivated a big bounce. What events are those? Name...
Mon, Feb 4 2019, 3:23 PM
Although they covered the topic in last month's Mortgage Monitor , further declines in interest rates have prompted Black Knight to take another look ...
Mon, Feb 4 2019, 9:34 AM
Last week's key events were the Fed announcement on Wednesday and the jobs report on Friday (with other econ data playing a strong supporting role). ...
Mon, Feb 4 2019, 9:04 AM
“All mushrooms are edible. Some are only edible once.” I am positive there are families in the U.S. that only buy or sell a house once in their life, ...
Mon, Feb 4 2019, 8:52 AM
It's widely known that homeownership rates are historically low and that they peaked at 69 percent in 2005. They began dropping a year or two later an...
Fri, Feb 1 2019, 7:24 PM
I imagine if you polled a thousand people who were among the most qualified to have an opinion about today's nonfarm payrolls forecast, you'd have b...
Fri, Feb 1 2019, 7:01 PM
Mortgage rates fell significantly yesterday, extending a reaction to the Federal Reserve's announcement and press conference from Wednesday. The Fed w...
Fri, Feb 1 2019, 3:12 PM
There was a flurry of rumors and a bit of a bull market around the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stock a few weeks ago after Federal Housing Finance Agen...
Fri, Feb 1 2019, 11:02 AM
Construction spending rose 0.8 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted rate of $1.30 trillion compared to $1.29 trillion in October. The Census B...
Fri, Feb 1 2019, 9:51 AM
While the median price of a home sold nationally increased more than 5 percent over the 12 months ended in October, the monthly payment on that home w...
Fri, Feb 1 2019, 9:02 AM
I can tell it’s almost Valentine’s day since Costco just put out the Halloween decorations. Speaking of Costco, its minimum wage is now $14 per hour. ...
Thu, Jan 31 2019, 5:35 PM
Yesterday marked a fairly big adjustment in the Fed's monetary approach to the same old underlying economic realities that were in place at the time o...
Thu, Jan 31 2019, 4:31 PM
Mortgage rates fell more triumphantly today, extending their reaction to yesterday's Federal Reserve announcement. The Fed isn't in direct control of ...
Thu, Jan 31 2019, 11:51 AM
The chant throughout 2018 from housing industry sources was inventory, inventory, inventory - or lack of same. It was blamed first for rising home pri...
Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:49 AM
New home sales exploded in November, rising 16.9 percent from October's dismal performance to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 657,000 units. The ...
Thu, Jan 31 2019, 9:50 AM
There's no question that the Fed was surprisingly dovish yesterday--even among those who were expecting a dovish shift. But there is a question as to...
Thu, Jan 31 2019, 8:55 AM
Rumors of a cancelled President’s Club award event in a mortgage division of a bank in the Northwest have tongues wagging about acquisition rumors by ...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 4:45 PM
Today's Fed Announcement was the first scheduled big-ticket market mover of the year since the NFP report on January 4th. With the government shutdow...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 4:15 PM
Mortgage rates fell moderately today, largely in response to the Federal Reserve's policy announcement. The Fed is in charge of setting a key short-te...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 2:03 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in November December indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen a...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 11:31 AM
Pending home sales were down again in December , falling below the Pending Home Sale Index's (PHSI's) benchmark 100 level to 99.0. The index was at 10...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 9:20 AM
Today's key even is the 2pm ET Fed Announcement. There will be no hike and no adjustment to existing policies. That said, given a noticeably dovis...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 9:07 AM
Here’s something for senior management to do some time. Casually ask someone under the age of 30, who is not in the business, like your server at The ...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 8:45 AM
Freddie Mac's Economic Research Group says in its January forecast that much of the volatility in the mortgage market since the end of the year has ar...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 8:21 AM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 6.6 percent in December , down from 6.8 percent th...
Wed, Jan 30 2019, 8:17 AM
It was yet another holiday shortened week, this time occasioned by Martin Luther King's birthday, and mortgage application activity was down. The Mort...
