Tue, Mar 5 2019, 7:27 PM
The bond market was already in the process of holding ground in the overnight session and domestic trading hours only added to the resilience. It may...
Tue, Mar 5 2019, 4:55 PM
After a pretty rough conclusion last week, yesterday's stability was a welcome change for mortgage rates at the start of the new week. Today made thin...
Tue, Mar 5 2019, 11:51 AM
It is our first glance at home prices in the new year and CoreLogic estimates the rate of appreciation has fallen by more than 2 percentage points sin...
Tue, Mar 5 2019, 10:45 AM
Analysts were not expecting new home sales in December to outpace the strong and surprising gains they made in November, when they jumped 16.9 percent...
Tue, Mar 5 2019, 9:10 AM
It may seem a bit counter-intuitive to be talking up economic data in light of last week's bond sell-off. Friday saw weaker-than-expected consumer sp...
Tue, Mar 5 2019, 8:44 AM
Equal pay rates and equality for men and women in the U.S.? Nope – our world ranking isn’t so hot. Turns out, however, that the construction industry ...
Mon, Mar 4 2019, 4:14 PM
As we watched bond markets sell-off abruptly last week, the best case scenario would have been that the selling was overdone and that we would soon be...
Mon, Mar 4 2019, 3:40 PM
Mortgage rates finally caught their breath today after rising quickly in the second half of last week. Specifically, the average lender managed to avo...
Mon, Mar 4 2019, 11:43 AM
The Census Bureau, still playing catch-up from the partial government shutdown , has released its monthly construction spending report for December 20...
Mon, Mar 4 2019, 9:38 AM
As the nation watches the terrible tornado-related events and casualties in Alabama, and sympathizes with those impacted, the rebuilding has already c...
Mon, Mar 4 2019, 9:22 AM
2019 had been (and perhaps continues to be) dominated by an increasingly narrow range. To appreciate just how narrow things have been, consider the m...
Fri, Mar 1 2019, 5:04 PM
Heading into today, if you were hoping to see rates move lower, it would have made sense to hope for economic data to come in weaker than expected. T...
Fri, Mar 1 2019, 4:15 PM
Mortgage rates surged again today as the underlying bond market continued to capitulate to selling pressure. Let's talk about what that means in plain...
Fri, Mar 1 2019, 11:51 AM
I like economists and math PhD.’s but there is some truth that “experts” have picked 8 of the last 4 recessions. While the U.S. economy is considered ...
Fri, Mar 1 2019, 10:06 AM
Freddie Mac's economists see low interest rates continuing, at least through the end of next year . The company's Economic and Strategic Research Grou...
Fri, Mar 1 2019, 9:26 AM
The long-standing consolidation range in 10yr Treasury yields finally came under serious attack yesterday, with a big breakout to the upside. Any tim...
Thu, Feb 28 2019, 7:14 PM
GDP doesn't usually move markets as clearly as it did today, but today was a bit of an anomaly. First off, we'd been waiting for this revision longer...
Thu, Feb 28 2019, 6:24 PM
The Census Bureau reported on Thursday that the national homeownership rate rose slightly in the fourth quarter of 2018 to 64.8 percent , up from 64.4...
Thu, Feb 28 2019, 6:00 PM
Mortgage rates moved quickly higher today following stronger-than-expected economic data. Rates are driven by the bond market. Bonds are safe-haven as...
Thu, Feb 28 2019, 11:37 AM
The share of cash-out refinances spiked in 2017 and 2018 in a manner similar to what happened just before the Great Recession. The share jumped to 50 ...
Thu, Feb 28 2019, 9:53 AM
As many of you are likely tired of hearing, bonds have been locked in an increasingly narrow trading range for weeks. The bounces at the boundaries h...
Thu, Feb 28 2019, 9:13 AM
Lenders need to be aware of the myriad of things that indirectly impact our business. The poverty rate declined overall in 2017 but the rate among His...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 5:54 PM
At one point today, there were three apparently important events dominating the newswires simultaneously. These included the Fed Chair's congressional...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 5:41 PM
"Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"
That's one of my favorite lines from some old book I read, or maybe it was a play (hint: it was a play!...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 10:27 AM
Expectations were high for a strong pending home sales report to christen the New Year. Those expectations were more than satisfied. The National Asso...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 9:56 AM
More than a year has elapsed since the Census Bureau collected data for its most recent (2017) American Community Survey (ACS), but unless things have...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 9:52 AM
Today brings a 2nd day of congressional testimony with Fed Chair Powell, this time before the House Financial Services Committee. The economic IQ var...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 9:04 AM
As opposed to HomeBridge Financial, which appears to be buying HomeStreet’s origination biz, it is no secret that JPMorgan Chase isn’t an ardent fan o...
Wed, Feb 27 2019, 8:14 AM
Mortgage applications increased for the second week as interest rates again ticked lower at well under 5 percent. The Mortgage Bankers Association sai...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 5:23 PM
Despite a fair amount of anticipation, today's Powell testimony proved to be a non-event for the bond market. Instead, things like the weak Housing...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 4:41 PM
Whereas mortgage rates were almost undetectably higher yesterday, they were lower by roughly the same insignificant amount today. In either case, and ...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 12:05 PM
Both the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller housing indices acknowledged further slowing in home price appreciat...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 11:14 AM
Sometime things are just not worth the wait. The long-delayed December report on residential construction from the Census Bureau and the Department of...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 9:59 AM
The Fed is undoubtedly a major factor in market movement--especially when it comes to rates. At first glance, the key consideration is their collec...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 9:01 AM
We all learn something every day. For example, did you know that the grocery chain Trader Joe’s is owned by a huge German supermarket chain? Yup. How ...
Tue, Feb 26 2019, 8:34 AM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 1.2 percent in January, down from 6.6 percent the ...
Mon, Feb 25 2019, 4:40 PM
If bonds happened to move higher in yield by more than they did today, we'd be talking about how the announcement of a US/China tariff extension put...
Mon, Feb 25 2019, 3:24 PM
Mortgage rates were very nearly unchanged today, although the average lender was just slightly higher. Investors reacted to news over the weekend that...
Mon, Feb 25 2019, 3:20 PM
Independent mortgage banks (IMBs) have been around for more than a century. but have taken on increased significance and power in the marketplace sinc...
Mon, Feb 25 2019, 9:10 AM
The "big" news over the weekend was the announcement of an extension on US/China tariffs that were set to go into effect on March 1st. While an event...
Mon, Feb 25 2019, 8:57 AM
When you hear “Midwest” what comes to mind? Missouri? Illinois? What about “Mideast?” Some place a long way from Missouri! “Rob, have you heard that t...
Fri, Feb 22 2019, 7:23 PM
As recently as January 10th, Jerome Powell unequivocally stated that the Fed's balance sheet wind-down was on auto pilot. In other words, they weren'...
Fri, Feb 22 2019, 6:12 PM
Mortgage rates are most directly affected by the day to day movement in the bond market. It's interesting to consider that bonds improved quite a bit ...
Fri, Feb 22 2019, 9:56 AM
If you're not familiar with these terms, you'll need the following definitions for today's commentary: hawkish/dovish.
The Fed is a key ingredient i...
Fri, Feb 22 2019, 8:53 AM
In the good news category, we can all knock “lumber prices” off the list as a hindrance to builders. Prices are down 25% in the last year. Is it “easi...
Fri, Feb 22 2019, 8:20 AM
Fannie Mae is predicting a notable slowdown in the growth of the U.S. economy in the first quarter of 2019. They have downgraded their earlier forecas...
Thu, Feb 21 2019, 4:48 PM
Although today brought the week's most anticipated line-up of economic data as well as overnight headlines on US/China trade agreements, the biggest m...
Thu, Feb 21 2019, 4:03 PM
Mortgage rates may be close to their lowest levels in more than a year, but they were slightly higher versus yesterday. Yesterday's rates were close e...
Thu, Feb 21 2019, 11:29 AM
Existing home sales fell again in January although the decline was a minor one compared to the 6.4 percent drop in December. The National Association ...
Thu, Feb 21 2019, 10:05 AM
A 16-basis point drop to 5.01 percent in the average rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages was given only partial credit for a sizable uptick in the r...
