Mon, Sep 10 2018, 8:51 AM
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t slept in a car at least once in their life. Whether it is having too much to drink, weary during a ro...
Fri, Sep 7 2018, 4:27 PM
Today's bond market wrap is as simple as the headline. Average hourly earnings or AHE is occasionally responsible for some impressive moves in bond...
Fri, Sep 7 2018, 2:53 PM
Mortgage rates rose moderately today (depending on the lender). It was enough to bring them back to the highest levels since early August. Additionall...
Fri, Sep 7 2018, 11:40 AM
Nearly all of America's home builders say they are facing significant shortages of skilled labor , both in the form of direct labor and as subcontract...
Fri, Sep 7 2018, 10:43 AM
Consumers appear to be increasingly upbeat about their jobs and their income, but dramatically less so about getting involved in the real estate marke...
Fri, Sep 7 2018, 8:54 AM
Some are fond of saying, “Zillow’s never set foot in a house.” But the company is a force to be reckoned with, especially now that it is in the proces...
Fri, Sep 7 2018, 8:33 AM
This morning's first chart is actually Private Payrolls (as opposed to nonfarm payrolls). Reason being: NFP accounts for Census Bureau hiring which c...
Thu, Sep 6 2018, 4:39 PM
Bonds were weaker in the overnight session, but only slightly. The onset of domestic trading saw a stronger contingent of traders lined up to buy bon...
Thu, Sep 6 2018, 4:06 PM
Mortgage rates were sideways to slightly lower today, depending on the lender. The discrepancy stems from mid-day bond market gains that were just bar...
Thu, Sep 6 2018, 1:01 PM
Housing trivia probably isn't a major hobby, but if you are into it, it is your birthday and the U.S. Census Bureau brought a present. The Bureau has ...
Thu, Sep 6 2018, 10:24 AM
I've been pretty bearish on bonds, in general, since the end of 2016. Against that backdrop, we can of course still look for tactical opportunities, ...
Thu, Sep 6 2018, 8:54 AM
In September, major league baseball teams expand their 25-man roster to 40 as teams scramble for the playoffs in October. In the mortgage business, ho...
Wed, Sep 5 2018, 4:45 PM
The first two trading days of September introduce a somewhat serious threat to the calm, sideways range that dominated the past 3 weeks. Granted, the...
Wed, Sep 5 2018, 4:32 PM
Will appraisals soon need to indicate a home's driving distance to the nearest cold-brew drive-through? Could be. According to a new study by the Harv...
Wed, Sep 5 2018, 3:58 PM
Mortgage rates have only been moving higher gradually , but things are adding up . Today's move brings them to the highest levels in nearly a month. I...
Wed, Sep 5 2018, 9:11 AM
If we’ve learned anything in the last ten years, it’s rarely a good thing when a lender is the focus of a story in the mainstream press, and this is n...
Wed, Sep 5 2018, 8:54 AM
Some economic reports matter when it comes to bond market movement potential, and many don't. The tricky thing about econ data is that reports that ...
Wed, Sep 5 2018, 8:14 AM
Purchase applications increased slightly during the week ended August 31, but overall mortgage activity fell slightly according to the Mortgage Banker...
Tue, Sep 4 2018, 4:42 PM
From a calendar standpoint, there were two notable features today. It was the first trading day in September--a month that often sees "something new"...
Tue, Sep 4 2018, 3:54 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today , reversing the improvement seen last Friday. The average lender is now back in line with their highest levels of th...
Tue, Sep 4 2018, 12:03 PM
Spending on residential construction continued to outpace construction in general in July although new home construction appeared to falter . The U.S....
Tue, Sep 4 2018, 10:12 AM
"Go West" may not be the best advice for someone in search of elbow room. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) says that housing lot sizes...
Tue, Sep 4 2018, 9:26 AM
For the bond market, September and/or October often see bigger moves than the preceding summertime months. There are notable exceptions, to be sure...
Tue, Sep 4 2018, 8:56 AM
As Gordon bears down on the Gulf Coast, we’re 2/3 of the way through the 3rd quarter of 2018 already. How’d that happen? Looking ahead, most employed ...
Fri, Aug 31 2018, 5:36 PM
August began with bond yields moving down from 3%, effectively keeping them in a sideways-to-slightly higher trend that arguably dates back to Janua...
Fri, Aug 31 2018, 5:17 PM
Mortgage rates caught a break to end a week that was otherwise spent moving higher. Although we did see a bit of improvement in underlying bond market...
Fri, Aug 31 2018, 4:37 PM
Fannie Mae’s 3% down payment HomeReady program was rolled out in 2016. HomeReady has numerous advantages over FHA loans (historically the most common ...
Fri, Aug 31 2018, 11:11 AM
Taking out a mortgage with an origination balance higher than whatever the conventional loan limit was at the time used to be an expensive proposition...
Fri, Aug 31 2018, 10:28 AM
There are a few different ways to measure volatility in the bond market, but one of the simplest is via the average daily trading range. That particu...
Fri, Aug 31 2018, 9:02 AM
“How can you make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere?” It seems that 3D-printing is going places. NASA awarded five teams $100,000 in a 3D-Prin...
Thu, Aug 30 2018, 4:22 PM
While we can't really avoid talking about "the range" recently (roughly 2.80 to 2.90 in terms of 10yr Treasury yields), we can at least talk about i...
Thu, Aug 30 2018, 3:17 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move at all, again today. There really hasn't been any meaningful movement for more than 3 weeks. The same thing happened from l...
Thu, Aug 30 2018, 10:52 AM
Freddie Mac will be consolidating two of its mortgage products into a single offering effective October 29, 2018. The company announced this and other...
Thu, Aug 30 2018, 10:35 AM
Freddie Mac reported today that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent in July. The portfolio balance at the end ...
Thu, Aug 30 2018, 9:10 AM
Is there a place for age or sex discrimination in mortgage banking? Of course not. So the court case earlier this month involving Sacramento’s Summit ...
Thu, Aug 30 2018, 8:52 AM
Remember the flat, boring range between 2.8 and 2.9? Or perhaps you prefer the slightly stricter version between 2.82 and 2.88? That's the range that...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 6:08 PM
Today ended up being the most uneventful day of the week in terms of outright volatility. In other words, bonds didn't cover as much ground as they d...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 5:16 PM
Mortgage rates were just slightly higher again today, keeping them in line with the highest levels in about 3 weeks. The same caveat applies: we're ta...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 11:46 AM
Earlier this month the National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB's) Eye on Housing blog featured a story on America's aging housing stock. NAHB ana...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 10:12 AM
Expectations weren't particularly high for a solid July report on home purchase contracts, but today's report from the National Association of Realtor...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 8:45 AM
GDP is released 3 times over 3 months beginning on the month that follows the quarter in question. In other words, Q2 (April-June) is first reported ...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 8:13 AM
In the first quarter of 2018, independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks posted only their second period of financial los...
Wed, Aug 29 2018, 8:05 AM
The surge in mortgage applications last week, fostered by a 6.0 percent increase in refinancing, was short-lived. Despite slightly lower interest rate...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 5:23 PM
Yesterday's bond market weakness introduced some risk of a technical shift back toward higher yields. Specifically, fast and slow stochastics (shor...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 4:48 PM
Mortgage rates rose again today--this time more noticeably than yesterday--bringing them to the highest levels in more than 2 weeks. For most, however...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 3:27 PM
Freddie Mac analysts see a two-pronged threat to housing sales for the remainder of the year, especially in the previously high-flying western part of...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 11:14 AM
The Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey (NHS) polls a large panel of consumers monthly about their attitudes toward housing and related topics and ge...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 10:39 AM
Prices slipped in June according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller price indices. The National Index, which covers all nine U.S. Census divisions, sho...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 9:54 AM
Late June through late July saw 10yr yields trade in the 'same old range' with lows centered on 2.81 and highs on 2.89. That range was broken at the ...
Tue, Aug 28 2018, 8:51 AM
As the East Coast swelters and Hawaii floods, loan officers I’ve spoken to recently believe the high price end in some markets is starting to stall a ...
