Fri, Aug 18 2017, 8:20 PM
In the Day Ahead, we discussed bond traders' probable goals regarding keeping things as calm as possible. This depended on unexpected headlines and m...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 7:54 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower again. Drama surrounding the Trump administration was also present. But this time around, the political theater wasn't resp...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 10:33 AM
Freddie Mac announced today that, going forward, not every application for a purchase mortgage will necessarily trigger an appraisal . A new automated...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 10:24 AM
As investors flooded into the housing market after it collapses, they brought cash with them. At one point, 35 percent of home sale transactions were ...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 8:50 AM
Brad Pitt - a wannabe architect? In 2007, Pitt founded the Make It Right Foundation to build homes for families whose original residences had been was...
Fri, Aug 18 2017, 7:34 AM
A maritime analogy for bond trading in the Summertime...
In the summer months especially, there's a boat-friendly baseline weather pattern offshore...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 6:01 PM
What do you get when bond markets embark on a snowball rally due to headlines concerning Trump's Economic Advisor Gary Cohn? A delicious "Snow Cohn,"...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 5:17 PM
Mortgage rates fell yesterday in response to a tweet about Trump disbanding his councils of CEOs. Twitter was in play again today . This time around i...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 4:25 PM
As a mortgage loan officer, I typically work with home buyers who are moving up, buying their first house, or buying a vacation or investment house. M...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 3:33 PM
Although home affordability is high, relative to pre-crisis levels, the rate at which their prices are increasing is cause for concern. Andrew LePage,...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 10:22 AM
With this morning's econ data already out and having no effect on bond markets, the only other report for the week is tomorrow morning's Consumer Sent...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 10:04 AM
There is still life left in refinancing. While at nowhere near the levels of a few years ago, Ellie Mae's Origination Insight Report for July reported...
Thu, Aug 17 2017, 9:38 AM
What will buildable land in Las Vegas set you back? The math is pretty easy: Toll Brothers has acquired 10 acres of vacant land at a once-bankrupt Sum...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 5:28 PM
Today looked like it would be all about waiting for the Fed Minutes to see if there were any surprises. That plan began in fairly good shape, with on...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 5:05 PM
Mortgage rates dropped today after news broke (first rumors, then confirmation via Twitter) that President Trump was disbanding his councils of CEOs. ...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 10:57 AM
Headstrong is a rather interesting word, but the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) chose it to describe the continuing imbalance between supply ...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 9:54 AM
After posting unexpectedly high numbers in June, all three residential construction indicators lost ground in July , and one, housing starts, is now r...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 9:32 AM
Today's biggest calendar item is the release of the FOMC Minutes at 2pm. The Minutes provide synopsis of the meeting that took place in the 2 days le...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 8:33 AM
I’ve only been in this business since the mid-80s, and as a capital markets person always find it amusing when an owner says, “If it wasn’t for TBA pa...
Wed, Aug 16 2017, 8:17 AM
A decline in applications for home purchases nearly overwhelmed the gain made by refinancing activity during the week ended August 11. The Mortgage Ba...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 4:15 PM
Today was mostly about North Korean de-escalation, and somewhat about stronger economic data. If you haven't heard 43 times already, North Korea grac...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 3:21 PM
Mortgage rates continued higher today as markets reacted to news that North Korea would tactically abstain from launching nuclear weapons at Guam beca...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 1:04 PM
One of the many shifts endured by the housing industry during the Great Recession was the entry of institutional investors into the single-family hous...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 10:31 AM
Builder confidence made a strong comeback this month , surprising analysts and belying some of the gloom expressed by the National Association of Home...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 9:17 AM
The science of persuasion? Any good salesperson, or LO, can talk someone into buying just about anything using scarcity, reciprocity, commitment, soci...
Tue, Aug 15 2017, 9:08 AM
Geopolitical risk is one of the most intuitive market movers for bonds. Threats of nuclear attacks from North Korea (as well as the rhetorical respon...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 5:24 PM
Housing, at least according to Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist Sean Becketti, isn't unaffordable. It just feels that way . Becketti, in...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 5:16 PM
Bond markets lost ground today, with all of the weakness arriving during the overnight session. The weakness was driven by a general "risk-on" move...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 4:29 PM
Mortgage rates rose moderately today as weekend news headlines suggested some measure of de-escalation of nuclear tensions between the US and North Ko...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 10:45 AM
About a month ago, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) seized on the May Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey (JOLTs) report as an indi...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 10:32 AM
If you haven't seen/read my primers on various technical analysis topics, they're linked at certain points in the text below, and will be helpful in m...
Mon, Aug 14 2017, 9:22 AM
Time passes by, and we have one week until the first total solar eclipse crossing the US from coast to coast since 1918. Football fans know that the s...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 6:16 PM
Citing increased fraud affecting its education and testing procedures, the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) is implementing a new biometr...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 5:59 PM
Bond markets ultimately rallied modestly following today's much-anticipated CPI data. This is a departure from recent norms as the last 3 reports...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 5:40 PM
Mortgage rates held near the lowest levels since November 2016 today, after a key economic report showed subdued inflation. The Consumer Price Index (...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 9:47 AM
Fannie and Freddie are doing their best to remain integral to housing finance. Let me save you a lot of money that you’d spend going to conferences ju...
Fri, Aug 11 2017, 8:28 AM
After a longstanding reign as one of the most meaningful market movers, inflation data became an outcast for most of the recovery from the financial c...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 4:29 PM
It's hard to appreciate just how different the trading session was for stocks compared to bonds. To be sure, a near 5bp drop in 10yr yields is "nice,...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 3:39 PM
Mortgage rates remained in line with 2017's lows today, despite noticeable improvement in underlying bond markets. Under normal circumstances, bond ma...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 11:28 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) expects there will be a sharp downturn reported in July sales of newly constructed homes. While its Builder App...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 11:12 AM
Freddie Mac has made some changes to the way in which lenders must handle rental income. The changes are primarily aimed at determining the stability ...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 10:02 AM
In terms of 10yr yields, bond markets have been locked in the same narrow range for a week and half. Even when the range was only 2 days old last wee...
Thu, Aug 10 2017, 9:12 AM
“Rob, I am a new loan officer in an area with lots of high balance loans, and my company caps me out at $7,500 of commissions. But real estate agents ...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 6:10 PM
Bonds had already begun the process of rallying in response to geopolitical risk yesterday afternoon. Notably, the headlines hit after the 3pm CME ...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 5:32 PM
Mortgage rates fell to new lows for the year today, following the North Korea nuclear threat headlines. In truth, the preceding sentence gives too muc...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 2:23 PM
Jumbo loans have historically been more expensive for borrowers than those the meet the "conforming" loan limit - which is currently set at $424,100. ...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 10:05 AM
There are several definitions of "pain trade" floating around on the web, and I'm not a huge fan of any of them. The top google hit is particularly b...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 9:24 AM
A while back I was walking past a small group of a lender’s senior managers and one of them was joking, “With the money we’ll save by shutting down qu...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 9:10 AM
CoreLogic reported on Tuesday that the national mortgage delinquency rate in May was the lowest in nearly a decade . The company's Loan Performance In...
Wed, Aug 9 2017, 8:26 AM
Refinancing performed well during the week ended August 4, pulling the Mortgage Bankers Association's Market Composite Index higher. The Index, a meas...
