Wed, Oct 3 2018, 6:20 PM
In terms of outright movement toward higher rates, you'd have to go back to the days following the election in November 2016 to find anything worse ...
Wed, Oct 3 2018, 4:43 PM
Mortgage rates skyrocketed today, in relative terms. It was the single worst day in nearly 2 years, and among only a few days where effective rates mo...
Wed, Oct 3 2018, 9:25 AM
Between 2001 and 2016, 97 percent of total job growth in the Unites States happened in urban counties. And while rural America is absolutely strugglin...
Wed, Oct 3 2018, 8:24 AM
As mortgage interest rates moved higher during the week ended September 28, with small increases carrying most to new seven year highs, application ac...
Wed, Oct 3 2018, 8:23 AM
Zen practitioners are an odd lot. One of their hallmark koans--the one about whether or not a tree falling in the woods makes a sound--is nonsense. ...
Tue, Oct 2 2018, 4:21 PM
Bonds had a couple options to choose from today when it came to potential market movers. As far as known quantities, we knew there would be a speech ...
Tue, Oct 2 2018, 3:46 PM
Mortgage rates fell modestly today, and thus managed to avoid heading any closer to the 7-year highs just overhead. Underlying bond markets benefited ...
Tue, Oct 2 2018, 11:47 AM
Two Zillow subsidiaries are estimating it will cost the average U.S. homebuyer $40,000 to get in the door of their new home. Depending on where the ho...
Tue, Oct 2 2018, 8:49 AM
“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.” There are plenty of folks out there reminding lenders of the seasonality of ...
Tue, Oct 2 2018, 8:37 AM
So there's this sideways trading range, and we're waiting for bonds to break out. The end...
Seriously though! It's really that simple . We'd b...
Tue, Oct 2 2018, 8:17 AM
The take-away from CoreLogic's report on its August Home Price Index is that home price appreciation during the month was the slowest in two years . T...
Mon, Oct 1 2018, 5:14 PM
After slogging up toward (but not over) long-term highs 2 weeks ago, 10yr yields began a waiting game that looked like it would take a cue from last W...
Mon, Oct 1 2018, 4:37 PM
After hitting the lowest levels in exactly 2 weeks on Friday, mortgage rates bounced back up toward their recent highs today. This risk was already ta...
Mon, Oct 1 2018, 11:29 AM
The total value of construction put in place during August only ticked up 0.1 percent compared to July, but the small, steady increases each month hav...
Mon, Oct 1 2018, 9:13 AM
Believe it or not, any given month stands a better than average chance to convey some sort of theme for bond trading. In other words, there tends to ...
Mon, Oct 1 2018, 8:51 AM
Is every non-bank lender of any size looking at offshore options to save money? Perhaps, and underwriting costs and productivity are usually brought u...
Fri, Sep 28 2018, 5:00 PM
Today brought rather pervasive pressure on longer-term rates and mortgages. It wasn't a significant amount of selling, but it was fairly steady thr...
Fri, Sep 28 2018, 4:25 PM
Mortgage rates were slightly lower again today, but there are some caveats. First of all, the average lender wasn't in substantially better shape comp...
Fri, Sep 28 2018, 10:07 AM
Freddie Mac made two announcements this week. The first is a long expected administrative change to requirements for private mortgage insurance (PMI) ...
Fri, Sep 28 2018, 8:53 AM
In less than 2 years, we'll be closer to 2070 than 1970! Does anyone feel that it’s silly to think of middle-aged mortgage bankers believing that they...
Fri, Sep 28 2018, 8:31 AM
September has been a long month for the bond market as rates quickly trudged back up to levels that aligned with our more pessimistic assumptions for ...
Thu, Sep 27 2018, 4:43 PM
In the past week, we've seen 10yr yields rise up and over 3.06%, flirt with 3.10%+ and come back down. This has happened only one other time since ...
Thu, Sep 27 2018, 4:13 PM
Mortgage rates fell modestly again today. Over the past 2 days, we've managed to undo more than a week of damage, with rates back at their best levels...
Thu, Sep 27 2018, 10:37 AM
The leading indicator for existing home sales continued to struggle in August and for the fourth time in the last five months purchase contract execut...
Thu, Sep 27 2018, 9:09 AM
Yesterday's Fed announcement--specifically, Fed Chair Powell's press conference remarks--set bonds up for a potential bounce. This would come at a c...
Thu, Sep 27 2018, 9:03 AM
Goldman Sachs telling us it expects four more short-term rate increases by the Fed in 2019, and it doesn’t make money by being wrong. Is your company ...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 4:59 PM
For a while, it looked like today would turn out to be one of those "dud" Fed days where actual market movement woefully undershoots potential market ...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 4:59 PM
One of the more contentious provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was a new ceiling on the SALT deduction. This is the amount taxpayers ...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 4:18 PM
Mortgage rates improved in a somewhat noticeable way for the first time in weeks following today's policy announcement from the Fed. Actually, to be f...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 2:08 PM
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June August indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and th...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 10:44 AM
New Home Sales posted a month-over-month increase for the first time since May according to Wednesday's report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Dep...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 10:41 AM
Freddie Mac reported today that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 6.1 percent in August. The portfolio balance at the en...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 9:22 AM
In trying to put together a chart for this morning, I kept running into a wall. It had to do with the likely outcomes associated with different Fed f...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 8:39 AM
The last four weeks for me have included spending time with lenders in Montana, Southern & Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Illinois. Yes, th...
Wed, Sep 26 2018, 8:15 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage application volume, moved higher during the week ended S...
Tue, Sep 25 2018, 4:35 PM
Bonds began the day in weaker territory this morning, and they didn't need anyone to twist their arm in getting there. That was our first clue that...
Tue, Sep 25 2018, 3:34 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged for some lenders today while others were in slightly higher territory. Either way, that leaves the average lender at the...
Tue, Sep 25 2018, 10:39 AM
Both of the major home price indexes that were released this morning showed continued deceleration in the rate of appreciation, even though July is us...
Tue, Sep 25 2018, 9:11 AM
We talk sometimes about bonds taking a "lead-off" (like in that sport that a few of us still remember). Well, at least I talk about bonds taking a le...
Tue, Sep 25 2018, 9:04 AM
The U.S. economy and job market are firing on nearly all cylinders (hence higher rates) but the housing market has essentially stalled. Here’s a stat ...
Mon, Sep 24 2018, 4:36 PM
Have you heard? The Fed announcement is coming up on Wednesday. While you've undoubtedly heard about that more than a few times (unless this is yo...
Mon, Sep 24 2018, 3:38 PM
Mortgage rates are having a bleak September, having risen at least an eighth of a percentage point in all cases and by a quarter of a point in many ca...
Mon, Sep 24 2018, 12:18 PM
Freddie Mac's Economic and Housing Research Group said on Monday that the U.S. economy and job market are firing on nearly all cylinders , "but the ho...
Mon, Sep 24 2018, 9:11 AM
It would be a tad dramatic to say that rates are at a crossroads as we head into the end of September, unless there's any additional weakness this wee...
Mon, Sep 24 2018, 9:03 AM
We’re now officially in autumn, one week left in the 3rd quarter. Most states in the U.S. don’t change their clocks until November 4th, but in Europe ...
Mon, Sep 24 2018, 8:24 AM
Are weather patterns beginning to provoke annual swings in mortgage delinquencies? Black Knight suggests, in its first look at August 2018 mortgage pe...
Fri, Sep 21 2018, 5:28 PM
By today, it became clear that bonds were fully locked into a sideways consolidation in a range defined by the highs seen on Wed/Thu and the lows mark...
Fri, Sep 21 2018, 4:46 PM
Mortgage rates actually fell today, on average--something they haven't been able to say all week, or indeed at nearly any time during the past 4 weeks...
Fri, Sep 21 2018, 4:44 PM
Even as flood water continue to sit in living rooms and kitchens across a large swath of North Carolina it is clear that most of those homes are not i...
Fri, Sep 21 2018, 10:15 AM
More often than not, when I use the word "believe" (or belief), it's in some vague and positive context. For instance, something like "bond buyers ar...
