Tue, Mar 28 2017, 9:39 AM
As an industry, we continue to be reminded of a small minority’s wrongdoings. The latest example comes from New York where a Copiague man was sentence...
Tue, Mar 28 2017, 8:47 AM
Today brings the week's first major economic data with 10am Consumer Confidence serving as the headliner. Before that, we'll get an update on home ...
Tue, Mar 28 2017, 7:51 PM
Just when you thought you'd seen the last of the healthcare bill drama , it comes roaring back. Well, at least it felt like a roar. In retrospect, ...
Tue, Mar 28 2017, 2:06 PM
Just one day after hitting the lowest levels in more than a month, mortgage rates bounced higher today. For all intents and purposes, rates fell on Mo...
Mon, Mar 27 2017, 1:58 PM
Housing remains in high demand in most of the nation, but the housing recovery looks increasingly uneven, depending on location. Whether buyers are sh...
Mon, Mar 27 2017, 11:12 AM
The third major home price index released January data released on Monday and it became the third to post a deceleration in the rate of price apprecia...
Mon, Mar 27 2017, 11:06 AM
This week involves a fair amount of cross-country travel for me (California, Washington DC, Florida, and Utah), and as it turns out Wells Fargo is the...
Mon, Mar 27 2017, 10:08 AM
The biggest questions for Monday comes from financial markets and is directed towards politicians in Washington. Are we done obsessing over the healt...
Mon, Mar 27 2017, 7:07 PM
Today could have gone two ways. We could have come to find out that Friday's "delay" in the vote on the healthcare bill was an actual delay, or we ...
Mon, Mar 27 2017, 6:41 PM
Mortgage rates improved today, hitting the lowest levels in more than a month. Bond markets (which underlie mortgage rates) generally improved last we...
Fri, Mar 24 2017, 10:51 AM
The share of homes sold for cash fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade in full-year 2016. CoreLogic said that 32.1 percent of all home sales in ...
Fri, Mar 24 2017, 10:47 AM
It wasn't exactly bait and switch, maybe unlawful substitution is closer to the mark. Whatever, Experian, the credit reporting company, has been handi...
Fri, Mar 24 2017, 10:22 AM
In legal news, Experian , one of the nation's three major credit reporting bureaus, misled consumers by telling them that the credit scores they purch...
Fri, Mar 24 2017, 9:47 AM
The healthcare bill is all anyone can talk about (here's one recent article from Reuters). We rarely see such an abrupt coalescence of market focus...
Fri, Mar 24 2017, 4:37 PM
More than a few bond bulls out there (those are folks who want rates to go lower!) were eager for the vote to take place on the healthcare bill that...
Fri, Mar 24 2017, 3:22 PM
While some lenders were slightly better or worse versus yesterday, mortgage rates were unchanged on average today. This isn't much of surprise conside...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 11:14 AM
New home sales posted a much better February than did existing home sales and, in fact, better than most analysts had expected. The U.S. Census Bureau...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 10:15 AM
The House Financial Services Committee (FSC) held a hearing on Tuesday into the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Financial Protectio...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 9:57 AM
As further evidence that the era of refinancing is ending, Black Knight Financial Services says that prepayment speeds (the SSM rate), historically a ...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 9:10 AM
Have you been asked to join the Trump Administration’ new group focusing on mortgage finance policy? No? My cat Myrtle hasn't gotten the nod (yet) eit...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 7:46 AM
In the post-apocalyptic hell (relative) that is the post-election bond market trading environment, there was a noble group of traders who attempted to...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 6:17 PM
Rarely has something so "off the radar" become such a focal point for financial markets as this week's vote on a healthcare revamp to replace the Aff...
Thu, Mar 23 2017, 4:06 PM
Mortgage rates were slightly higher for the first time in 8 days as markets braced for the impact of political developments. The big issue of the day ...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 11:20 AM
Existing home sales burst out of the box in January to start the year out with a 3.2 percent increase over the previous month. Those gains, however, w...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 10:56 AM
What a difference a month makes. After posting monthly price increase in all but one month since early 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency report...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 9:23 AM
Things are getting exciting for markets, and not simply because bond yields have returned to the core of their prevailing range for 2017 just after al...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 8:36 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said today that the volume of applications for both purchase mortgages and refinancing retreated last week from...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 5:36 PM
“Dance like no one is watching. E-mail like one day it may be read aloud in a deposition.” Here's some pithier legal news. The Department of Justice i...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 5:30 PM
Bond markets began the day in slightly stronger territory and quickly embarked on the same sort of rally that characterized yesterday morning. Today'...
Wed, Mar 22 2017, 3:44 PM
Mortgage rates were lower for the 7th day in a row today, further extending their push into the lowest levels of the month. At first, that positive mo...
Tue, Mar 21 2017, 12:39 PM
The reported net profit per loan reported to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) by independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of charter...
Tue, Mar 21 2017, 12:36 PM
In terms of credit risk, the loans originated in the fourth quarter of last year are among the highest quality mortgages originated since 2001 accordi...
Tue, Mar 21 2017, 10:16 AM
Who can you trust? Digital Journal reports new malware targets Google Chrome users with a pop up that indicates a new font needs to be installed for w...
Tue, Mar 21 2017, 9:13 AM
Bond markets continue making a case for re-entry into the core of the range that has been intact since December 2016. The December Fed meeting helped...
Tue, Mar 21 2017, 5:21 PM
If there was one catalyst for the overall surge toward higher stocks and rates at the end of 2016, it was the expectation that the new administration'...
Tue, Mar 21 2017, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates continued lower today as political uncertainty sparked the biggest day of stock market losses since the election. In general, short ter...
Mon, Mar 20 2017, 10:58 AM
Say it ain’t so! Fannie is being bought by an Italian company?! Sure enough, Italy’s Ferrero International SA is buying U.S.-based Fannie May Confecti...
Mon, Mar 20 2017, 9:15 AM
This week will be fairly light in terms of scheduled economic data . The first relatively significant report won't be out until Wednesday (Existing ...
Mon, Mar 20 2017, 7:14 PM
Much like Friday, today was uneventful and moderately positive for bond markets. At some point, we have to consider the combined effects of these sor...
Mon, Mar 20 2017, 3:58 PM
Mortgage rates were steady-to-slightly lower today, keeping them in line with the lowest levels in 2 weeks and very close to the lowest levels of the ...
Mon, Mar 20 2017, 3:28 PM
Fannie Mae's March economic forecast was written before the FOMC announced an increase in the fed funds rate last Wednesday. The company's economists ...
Mon, Mar 20 2017, 2:39 PM
The House Financial Services Committee has scheduled a hearing on March 21 titled "The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection's (CFPB's) Unconstituti...
Fri, Mar 17 2017, 10:58 AM
Earlier this month, Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) submitted a report to the agency claim...
Fri, Mar 17 2017, 10:31 AM
FHA's mortgage share, which surged following the housing crisis and helped shore up the market, is now in a steady decline. However, the loans written...
Fri, Mar 17 2017, 9:03 AM
The Fed reported US household net worth (total asset value minus total liability value) jumped to a record $92.8 trillion in Q4 driven by stock market...
Fri, Mar 17 2017, 8:53 AM
Happy St. Patrick's Day.
Now that you're thinking about a country in Europe, let's talk about European bonds for a moment. US and European bonds...
Fri, Mar 17 2017, 5:28 PM
If wearing some green is all it takes, bonds would have escaped today pinch-free. Treasuries and MBS began the day with just a token amount of green ...
Fri, Mar 17 2017, 2:56 PM
Mortgage rates managed to maintain the improvement seen since Wednesday's Fed announcement. While the Fed did indeed hike its policy rate, the hike wa...
Thu, Mar 16 2017, 10:10 AM
Housing permits were down in February, wiping out the gains posted in January, while housing starts also reversed course , posting the year's first ga...
Thu, Mar 16 2017, 10:09 PM
Home purchase loans jumped to a 57 percent share of all mortgage originations in February, up from 53 percent in January. Data from the latest Ellie M...
