Wed, Sep 12 2018, 8:10 AM
Mortgage applications for home purchases managed to move higher for the second straight time last week in spite of the usual lag in activity that acco...
Tue, Sep 11 2018, 4:43 PM
With no intent of drawing any parallels to Hurricane Florence, bond markets are battening down their hatches in advance of a perfect storm of data and...
Tue, Sep 11 2018, 4:19 PM
Mortgage rates held fairly steady this morning, keeping them in line with the highest levels since early August. As the day progressed, underlying bon...
Tue, Sep 11 2018, 4:15 PM
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) moved lower in August due to a decline in its jumbo loan component...
Tue, Sep 11 2018, 12:57 PM
Mortgage lenders appear to be holding credit standards stable despite increasing competition and declining demand and profit expectations. Fannie Mae'...
Tue, Sep 11 2018, 9:18 AM
Overnight weakness in bonds sets us up to test some more serious boundaries today. As seen in the chart below (the same chart we've been watching f...
Tue, Sep 11 2018, 8:55 AM
“Rob, although the initial commotion about Amazon entering the mortgage biz has died down, my management team believes it is still a threat. We have h...
Mon, Sep 10 2018, 4:45 PM
Perhaps traders were tired? Perhaps they are still on high alert but just haven't gotten to the week's more meaningful events yet? Either way, the...
Mon, Sep 10 2018, 3:10 PM
Mortgage rates were slightly higher today, depending on the lender . Many lenders ended up raising rates last Friday afternoon as underlying bond mark...
Mon, Sep 10 2018, 11:44 AM
Last week we summarized a report from the National Association of Home Builders on the acute labor shortages builders are indicating in responses to t...
Mon, Sep 10 2018, 10:58 AM
Bonds/rates are in the process of defending their castle. Their way of life inside those walls could be thought of as the general maintenance of a lo...
Mon, Sep 10 2018, 10:17 AM
Whether due to lessons learned from the foreclosure crisis, an improved economy, or a combination of these and other factors, Black Knight, in its cur...
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...
