Mon, Aug 1 2016, 12:18 PM
Construction spending eased slightly in June, but the
Census Bureau said today that it is still running substantially ahead of spending
in the fir...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 9:14 AM
Have you ever heard of the AARMR? I know – as if this industry needs yet another acronym. Pronounced by those “in the know” as “armor,” it is the Amer...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 8:59 AM
Back in 2015--almost exactly a year ago, actually--the order of the day was determining the timing of the Fed's first rate hike since the financial cr...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 7:01 PM
We were already defensive, to some extent, about the possibility that last Friday's gains were driven by month-end trading needs. Indeed, there was a...
Mon, Aug 1 2016, 5:51 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today after hitting the lowest levels in roughly 2 weeks last Friday. Today's increase was fairly minimal in the big ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 12:44 PM
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is
proposing changes to its Know Before You Owe Mortgage Disclosure Act, usually
referred to in the ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 10:28 AM
"Buy land - they're not
making any more of it." And the reverse is happening in Louisiana. Say what you
want about global warming, or inappropriate ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 9:28 AM
Homeownership rates, which have been declining since
the end of the housing boom, hit an a ll-time low in the second quarter of
2016 . The rate at ...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 8:39 AM
With 10yr yields up only 2.2bps to begin the day and MBS down only 2 ticks, it's interesting to note that initial reaction to the overnight policy ann...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 4:46 PM
Heading into the close at much stronger levels this afternoon, it would be easy to overlook the fact that bond markets were weaker overnight (followin...
Fri, Jul 29 2016, 4:15 PM
Mortgage rates enjoyed another strong day, falling to the best levels in exactly 2 weeks. Rates were actually set to move higher early this morni...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 9:44 AM
I don’t know how it is that we only have two business days left in July – time flies. For me this month has included Honolulu, Denver, Sacramento, San...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 9:06 AM
One tricky thing about technical analysis (things like moving averages and other mathematical formulas applied to charts in order to get them to cough...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 4:59 PM
Cash sales continued to account for a significant
portion of all home sales in April.
CoreLogic said on Wednesday that 31.6 percent of home sales t...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 4:57 PM
In the bigger picture, today was all about confirming and consolidating yesterday's gains. Trading levels held inside narrow ranges for both MBS an...
Thu, Jul 28 2016, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates fell at the quickest pace in more than a month today as lenders priced-in the market improvements seen after yesterday's Fed Announ...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 10:39 AM
Pending home sales eked out, although only barely, an
increase in June after a falling by an unexpectedly large percentage in
May. The National Ass...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:59 AM
Fannie Mae has made changes to its HomeReady
mortgage program that allows borrowers to obtain a mortgage with as little as a
3 percent downpayment...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:57 AM
The statistics are no surprise. The Urban Institute says for every 100
extremely low income households there are only 29 adequate, affordable, a...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:51 AM
One of the biggest challenges faced by business owners today is attracting and retaining great people. Millennials and those with diverse ethnic backg...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:22 AM
Mortgage
applications took a significant downturn during the week ended July 22 as
mortgage rates moved off of historic lows.
The Mortgage Banke...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:21 AM
First thing's first: "consolidation" refers to a pronounced narrowing of a trading range after an uptrend or downtrend. Consolidations can occur with...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 4:49 PM
Dovish vs Hawkish: This refers to how accommodative the Fed's policy stance might be. Have you ever seen a hawk stare down its prey? That's how a ...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 3:56 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly lower today, although that's only true for lenders who issued mid-day improvements following the Fed's policy announ...
Wed, Jul 27 2016, 2:01 PM
(additions underlined, deletions struck-through)
For immediate release
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in Apri...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 11:39 AM
Foreclosure starts rose in June for the second month in a row but Black Knight Financial Services, in its "first look" at the month's mortgage perfo...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 10:43 AM
The newly named S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices noted a continued rise in prices across the country although some monthly indices declined . Th...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 10:37 AM
Sales of newly constructed homes posted a gain in June, rising 3.5 percent from the May estimate. The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 9:13 AM
The capital markets are always changing, and the latest news to turn some heads is that JPMorgan Chase is streamlining its operations and will no lon...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 9:03 AM
Smart stakeholders in financial markets tend to avoid assuming or asserting that particular trading levels WILL behave in a particular way. There are...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 6:26 PM
Last week saw the yields increasingly hold inside the "new narrow" range between 1.54 and 1.59. Frankly, I felt like it was a long shot for that ra...
Tue, Jul 26 2016, 4:58 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher today, and are now effectively at the highest levels in month. That sounds a bit more dire than it is, thoug...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 10:59 AM
A strong market in the Mountain West drove U.S. home
prices up 1.1 percent in May. The Black
Knight Home Price Index (HPI) put Idaho , Utah , a...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 9:47 AM
Every day we have news coming out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some of the news is attempts at changing the structure of the two – being under gover...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 9:09 AM
Bond markets begin another week in the same sideways range, still waiting for the same events to suggest the next concerted effort to take yields hi...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 4:30 PM
Bond markets did nothing wrong today. There was a bit of red on trade screens (indicating modestly higher yields in Treasuries and lower MBS prices...
Mon, Jul 25 2016, 4:08 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged again today, making three out of the past 4 days where rates haven't budged and 6 out of the past 7 days where rates...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 11:24 AM
Fannie Mae's economists have upgraded projections for economic growth in the second quarter to by 0.3 percent to 2.4 percent because of unexpectedly s...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 11:19 AM
Every month the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development issues statistics on residential construction - permits authorized, ...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 11:03 AM
All the housing statistics this week made my head spin. How good would you be at building your own house? Here’s a short 10 question quiz that will ...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 9:05 AM
If bond-trading aliens scanned the universe for signs of life and happened upon planet earth this week, they probably wouldn't even send an imperial p...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 5:32 PM
Bond markets had yet another uneventful day with yet another close inside the same old range that's dominated the entire week (with one brief exceptio...
Fri, Jul 22 2016, 3:51 PM
Mortgage rates didn't budge , compared to yesterday's, which leaves them in line with their highest levels since late June. A small majority lende...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 11:03 AM
Sales of existing homes increased in June for the fourth consecutive month . The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said it was encouraged to s...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 10:48 AM
Prices increased by 0.2 percent from April to May on a seasonally adjusted basis according to figures released today by the Federal Housing Finance Ag...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 10:44 AM
While it's a bit of retrospective considering the drop in rates brought on by the Brexit news late in the month, the share of purchase originations h...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 10:39 AM
Happy 6th year-old-birthday to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Or is it the CFPB’s 5th “birthday”? For those new to the...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 8:49 AM
With slight weakness overnight, bonds begin the domestic trading session with their backs against the wall, yet again. The "wall" in this case could ...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 5:51 PM
Any time we watch a sideways range rates with fairly clear technical boundaries, it's only natural to hope that the upper boundary will hold up in the...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 4:59 PM
For most lenders, you'd have to go back to late June in order to see mortgage rates any higher than they were today, although several lenders d...
