Fri, Feb 15 2019, 8:19 AM
The perceptions, expectations, and plans of prospective homebuyers appear to be undergoing a transition according to results from the most recent Hous...
Thu, Feb 14 2019, 5:22 PM
While we have not yet seen figures from the Census Bureau for December let alone January, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is reporting a surge ...
Thu, Feb 14 2019, 5:18 PM
Of all the reports silenced by the government shutdown, Retail Sales was probably the most missed. It didn't help that December is a rather important...
Thu, Feb 14 2019, 4:43 PM
Mortgage rates recovered today after rising to the highest levels in a week as of yesterday. The improvement followed a much-weaker-than-expected Reta...
Thu, Feb 14 2019, 8:31 AM
Perhaps it wasn't their fault, but several top tier economic reports up and left us during the government shutdown. We knew we'd see them again at so...
Wed, Feb 13 2019, 6:18 PM
At first glance, this morning's weakness was all about the Consumer Price Index (CPI)--the most widely-followed inflation report. In order to make a ...
Wed, Feb 13 2019, 4:41 PM
Mortgage rates hadn't changed much over the past few business days, even though they arguably should have moved a bit higher yesterday. That made toda...
Wed, Feb 13 2019, 11:40 AM
A total of 8.8 million households bought homes in the two years preceding the most recent American Housing Survey (AHS). The survey, sponsored by the ...
Wed, Feb 13 2019, 9:17 AM
Amazon accounts for nearly 50% of the ecommerce activity in the United States. With that kind of delivery service, it isn’t hard to see why malls are ...
Wed, Feb 13 2019, 8:48 AM
This morning brings the week's first major economic report in the form of the Consumer Price Index (CPI)--one of the biggest inflation reports. Infla...
Wed, Feb 13 2019, 8:14 AM
Mortgage applications have now fallen in six of the last eight weeks. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its seasonally adjusted Market Compo...
Tue, Feb 12 2019, 5:18 PM
It's hard to say exactly where stocks and bonds would be today absent the news from yesterday night regarding a possible shutdown deal. Both sides of...
Tue, Feb 12 2019, 4:32 PM
Mortgage rates were roughly unchanged yet again today, although the average lender was charging microscopically higher fees compared to yesterday. The...
Tue, Feb 12 2019, 11:41 AM
An asset bubble can burst, or it can develop a slow leak, and float more or less gradually back to normal levels. The National Association of Realtors...
Tue, Feb 12 2019, 10:12 AM
According to CoreLogic, loan performance continues to improve on a national basis, with delinquencies dropping more than 1 percentage point over the 1...
Tue, Feb 12 2019, 9:46 AM
In the shorter-term, there's nothing too interesting about the past few weeks of trading. Relative to the highs and lows set in the first 3 weeks of ...
Tue, Feb 12 2019, 8:56 AM
From Twitter: “When self-driving cars become mainstream, dead old people will occasionally just arrive places.” Morbid humor aside, will it really hel...
Mon, Feb 11 2019, 4:26 PM
I have to stretch to make a day like today interesting. As I'm fond of doing, I could easily label this one of those unofficial 3-day weekend type of...
Mon, Feb 11 2019, 3:55 PM
Mortgage rates held their ground fairly well today, despite the fact that underlying bond markets were weaker. Bond market weakness is associated with...
Mon, Feb 11 2019, 8:57 AM
When I grow up, I want to live…next to the airport? Usually, airports are there before people move in around them, and then the residents all complain...
Mon, Feb 11 2019, 8:53 AM
The two key fiscal issues at the moment are the trade deal with China and the expiration of temporary government funding at the end of this week. Bet...
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...
