Tue, Mar 15 2016, 11:52 AM
After dropping three points in February to 58, the Housing Market Index, a measure of builder confidence in the single-family home market, remained u...
Tue, Mar 15 2016, 9:59 AM
Tiny homes are all the rage and a leading lumber company is capitalizing on this new trend, 84 Lumber has introduced its Tiny Living collection , m...
Tue, Mar 15 2016, 8:28 AM
In the early overnight session, the policy announcement from the Bank of Japan (BOJ) was a bit of a downer for global risk markets. It wasn't that it...
Tue, Mar 15 2016, 5:37 PM
Bonds start strong after Bank of Japan Announcement'
Further improvements after weak Retail Sales revision
The gains served as a cue for traders...
Tue, Mar 15 2016, 5:06 PM
Mortgage rates were essentially unchange d today, despite implied weakness in underlying bond markets. In other words, rates should have move...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 9:43 AM
Americans have regained most of the wealth lost when the real estate bubble burst. Homeowners' equity has more or less doubled since the lows of 20...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 9:03 AM
Seeing as how March would end up being the worst month for bond markets since the taper tantrum if the current pace of selling continues, and wherea...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 5:15 PM
Calm Monday, for the most part
Bonds probably took cues from oil prices
Bonds bounced when oil bounced (around noon)
Net effect was modest ga...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 4:20 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly lower today, for the second time in March. Unfortunately, the improvement did little to erase the recent weakness, ...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 2:19 PM
A lot has been written over the past few weeks about the Millennial generation and what it is and is not doing in the housing market. CoreLogic recen...
Fri, Mar 11 2016, 9:48 AM
Regarding the darned time change Sunday, from Georgia Jim Bedsole writes, “Which is why I continue to advocate that, if we are going to be forced to ‘...
Fri, Mar 11 2016, 8:48 AM
Bond markets have been partying pretty hard so far in 2016, though the party has been dying down since mid February . That process began with st...
Fri, Mar 11 2016, 5:59 PM
Pointless, confused trading day for multiple markets
Bonds struggled sideways at first, then broke into weaker territory for no apparent reason
...
Fri, Mar 11 2016, 5:14 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly higher again today, pushing farther into the highest territory since late January. Today's move wasn't that big, in a...
Fri, Mar 11 2016, 4:45 PM
The number of second homes in the U.S. has increased by more than a half million in the five years following the recession. Using 2014 data, the Nati...
Thu, Mar 10 2016, 11:56 AM
If the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is correct there was a huge jump in new home sales in February. MBA's Builder Application Survey (BAS) whic...
Thu, Mar 10 2016, 11:54 AM
The share of homeowners with positive equity in their homes crossed the 90 percent mark in 2015 according to CoreLogic. Over the course of the year ...
Thu, Mar 10 2016, 10:51 AM
Settlement is the name of the game for lenders, investors...and the rating agencies. Moody's Investors Service Inc. a greed to pay $130 million ...
Thu, Mar 10 2016, 8:38 AM
The European Central Bank (ECB) broke with tradition to some extent, as it announced several policy changes in the 7:45am press release. This relea...
Thu, Mar 10 2016, 5:26 PM
Mortgage rates continued higher today, making it back to levels last seen in late January. Today's key event was a policy announcement from the Eur...
Thu, Mar 10 2016, 5:26 PM
ECB unveils bigger-than-expected package of rate cuts and QE purchases
Then Draghi says the magic words (in a nutshell: no more rate cuts)
Stock...
Wed, Mar 9 2016, 9:08 AM
Regulators don't like the unregulated, and in what some would term, "the CFPB inviting more into its boat to be bashed with oars," it announced it is ...
Wed, Mar 9 2016, 8:58 AM
Yesterday's fears: that the gains were just a byproduct of trading positions
Particularly, bond bears were covering bets on higher rates
Trader...
Wed, Mar 9 2016, 8:14 AM
Mortgage application activity during the week ended March 4 was, at best, lackluster with a small gain in purchase mortgage applications offsetting a ...
Wed, Mar 9 2016, 4:43 PM
Mortgage rates bounced higher today, moving all the way back to the highest levels since early February. While that sounds quite dramatic, the same...
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 11:52 AM
The national foreclosure inventory dropped by about a
quarter year over year, bringing the number of homes in the process of
foreclosure at the end ...
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 11:36 AM
The most dramatic change in responses to Fannie Mae's most recent National Housing Survey was in the net number of Americans who think home prices are...
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 11:28 AM
Even as the share of originations going for refinancing began to flag in the fourth quarter of 2015 the cash-out share of those refinancing increased....
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 10:50 AM
Overheard the other day: a young person telling a friend, "Why should I get a loan now? I am going to wait for negative rates here in the U.S. so bank...
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 8:52 AM
The past week has been unpleasant for bond markets, to say the least. Even before that, the strong bounce off the long-term lows in mid-February fo...
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 5:33 PM
Treasuries much stronger overnight, following weak Chinese trade data, strong Japanese bond market gains, and decent European bond market gains
Bon...
Tue, Mar 8 2016, 4:46 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower today, regaining a good amount of the ground lost over the past few days. The average lender rate sheet is back in lin...
Mon, Mar 7 2016, 11:27 AM
The sharp drop in interest rates that began 2016 has had a very real impact on the so-called "refinanceable" population of homeowners. Black Knight...
Mon, Mar 7 2016, 10:41 AM
Three financial regulatory agencies have clarified current rules on the use of appraisals versus property evaluations Three financial regulatory agen...
Mon, Mar 7 2016, 10:33 AM
Well it's that time of year again, yup, election season. As you may or may not know with all the fireworks going on, a fellow mortgage industry member...
Mon, Mar 7 2016, 8:41 AM
Bond markets obviously had a pretty rough go of it last week, having broken out of the sideways trend that followed early February's long-term lows. ...
Mon, Mar 7 2016, 5:42 PM
Big rally in oil brings stocks back up and keeps pressure on bonds
Corporate debt supply also hurt Treasuries specifically, but earlier in the day ...
Mon, Mar 7 2016, 5:10 PM
Mortgage rates moved only slightly higher today on average. Some lenders were effectively unchanged from Friday, which is impressive considering t...
Fri, Mar 4 2016, 12:13 PM
Lenders, especially mortgage banks and larger lending institutions, are increasingly pessimistic about their profits. Fannie Mae says that response...
Fri, Mar 4 2016, 9:23 AM
This is the only day of the year that sounds like a military command: "March Forth"! That is certainly not as interesting as the SAT eliminating "tri...
Fri, Mar 4 2016, 8:23 AM
"Stop me if you've heard this one before. There's this epic long-term inflection point defined by 10yr yield levels 1.84-1.86. It stretches back to 2...
Fri, Mar 4 2016, 5:53 PM
Jobs report was good, mostly (242k vs 190k forecast, but some internal weakness)
10yr yields breaking 1.84 support is bad
10yr yields holding un...
Fri, Mar 4 2016, 5:10 PM
Mortgage rates moved only moderately higher today after the Employment Situation report came out much stronger than expected. The all-important jo...
Thu, Mar 3 2016, 12:49 PM
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have long advocated for homebuyer education but as Freddie Mac points out in this month's edition of Insight and Outlook, ...
Thu, Mar 3 2016, 9:58 AM
Any loosening of credit access in February was offset by
tightening by other programs the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said on
Thursday. Cons...
Thu, Mar 3 2016, 9:52 AM
Household debt increased 0.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the NY Fed . Student loan and auto loan financing are growing the most, while mort...
Thu, Mar 3 2016, 8:31 AM
Let's not overcomplicate things too much when it comes to the 2016 bond market rally. In fact, let's move in the other direction for a moment and con...
Thu, Mar 3 2016, 5:28 PM
Bonds slightly weaker overnight; low volume; lack of inspiration
Domestic trading stayed very flat until 11:20am
Bonds rallied sharply but bri...
Thu, Mar 3 2016, 4:31 PM
Mortgage rates began the day slightly higher, on average, but managed to make it back in line with yesterday's levels by the afternoon. Some lend...
Wed, Mar 2 2016, 10:55 AM
March... St. Patrick's Day, the religious holiday to honor St. Patrick who introduced Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century. Fortunately there ...
