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...
Tue, Jan 29 2019, 4:24 PM
There were a smattering of headlines and events available for bond markets to digest today. If rates ended up moving higher, we could likely find a w...
Tue, Jan 29 2019, 4:01 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move yesterday, despite a moderate amount of improvement in underlying bond markets. When bonds improve, rates tend to move lowe...
Tue, Jan 29 2019, 12:14 PM
The days when published a monthly tally of the number of loan modifications made by servicers under several public and private sector programs are lon...
Tue, Jan 29 2019, 10:38 AM
The pace of home price increases slowed a little more in November. The non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Pri...
Tue, Jan 29 2019, 9:19 AM
In their best Caddyshack voice, traders are collectively saying "well? We're waiting" to both stocks and bonds at the moment as each side of the mark...
Tue, Jan 29 2019, 9:16 AM
Think you have trouble finding good talent in the mortgage biz? The L.A. Times writes that President Trump signed an order to hire 15,000 new border a...
Mon, Jan 28 2019, 5:15 PM
Back on January 18th, stocks made it as high as they've been able to make it since early December. From there, they ebbed a bit and traded sideways f...
Mon, Jan 28 2019, 4:23 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move at all today, on average, but that's likely to change throughout the course of the week--possibly several times. Interest r...
Mon, Jan 28 2019, 9:43 AM
The mighty Employment Situation (the big jobs report that gives us nonfarm payrolls, unemployment rate, avg hourly earnings, etc) is the king of all e...
Mon, Jan 28 2019, 9:02 AM
Another 5-day work week. Sigh. To some it’ll seem “longer than a CVS receipt.” To others it will fly by. What is also flying is the market in Boise, I...
Fri, Jan 25 2019, 6:25 PM
Today's focal point was an anticlimactic can-kicking episode wherein the government shutdown was finally ended, but only for 3 weeks. The passage of ...
Fri, Jan 25 2019, 6:00 PM
Mortgage rates were only slightly higher today, and didn't rise enough to make it above the levels that showed up somewhat abruptly on Wednesday. That...
Fri, Jan 25 2019, 9:50 AM
We often use terms like "stock lever" and concepts like asset allocation to discuss the conventional wisdom of stock prices and bond yields moving in ...
Fri, Jan 25 2019, 8:29 AM
For me last week included Orange County and Connecticut, this week Memphis and So Cal, and next week Atlanta. I find it curious when a flight attendan...
Fri, Jan 25 2019, 8:17 AM
The library of articles citing the alarming lack of new construction continues to grow. Freddie Mac, the Urban Institute (UI), and John McManus of Bui...
Thu, Jan 24 2019, 4:25 PM
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi delivered his customary press conference following this morning's policy announcement. Markets expected ...
Thu, Jan 24 2019, 3:45 PM
Mortgage rates jumped to the highest levels in 2019 yesterday, even if only by a small margin. It was one of the few abrupt moves we've seen in recent...
Thu, Jan 24 2019, 10:24 AM
The share of December originations that were adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) was the highest since Ellie Mae began tracking them in 2011 the company ...
Thu, Jan 24 2019, 8:54 AM
I think that keeping my personal information and passwords on my yellow note pad is safer than putting it “in the cloud.” More than 24 million financi...
Thu, Jan 24 2019, 8:47 AM
The ECB announced no change to its policy rates this morning, which was completely in-line with market expectations. In a bit of departure from the n...
Thu, Jan 24 2019, 8:08 AM
The US ended 2018 with the lowest delinquency rate since at least the beginning of this century. Black Knight says the December rate of 3.88 percent i...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 3:29 PM
There are several "somethings" that could prove inspirational for bond markets at the moment. The biggest among those continues to be any major shi...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 3:06 PM
Mortgage rates jumped a bit today, as lenders got caught up with the bond market movements from last Friday. It's fair to wonder why they wouldn't hav...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 10:56 AM
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said its November Housing Price Index recorded an 0.4 percent gain compared to October. The October increase...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 10:03 AM
The wholesale pricing wars continue, the latest salvo from Freedom Mortgage in the FHA & VA stadium (see below). Fans of FHA lending, who tend to bris...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 9:01 AM
Bond yields and stock prices are beginning the day in moderately higher territory than yesterday. This keeps a negative trend intact for bonds (both ...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 8:27 AM
Fannie Mae does not expect a lasting impact from the current partial government shutdown, at least if it is over soon. In its January Economic Develop...
Wed, Jan 23 2019, 8:15 AM
Mortgage applications returned to more normal levels during the week ended January 18 after two rather post-holiday periods. Both purchasing and refin...
Tue, Jan 22 2019, 4:39 PM
For those who pay any sort of attention to technicals or simply to "key levels" in the bond market, Friday was the gloomiest day we've had in a whil...
