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...
Thu, Jul 21 2016, 1:04 PM
Oh those Baby Boomers. Even as they age they don't retire, at least not from the public stage. This week those over age 55 were the subject of Fredd...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 10:22 AM
Remember when someone was "fired" instead of "managed out?" Then there's a good old-fashioned purge like what Turkish President Erdogan did yesterday ...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 9:25 AM
Bond yields hit all time lows. Then they bounced higher. Widespread discussion ensued on the next "key levels" to watch. The goal, of course, is ...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 8:19 AM
Interest rates reversed direction during the week ended July 15, ending, whether temporarily or not, several weeks of declines. In response, applicat...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 4:30 PM
Over the past two days there has been a relative explosion of analyst interviews (from big firms like JP Morgan , etc.) calling for big, inevitable...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 3:04 PM
CoreLogic, in a recent article on its blog, celebrated, if that's the word, the 10 th anniversary of the housing bubble. Principal Economists David ...
Wed, Jul 20 2016, 2:24 PM
Mortgage rates held perfectly steady today, with most lenders offering the exact same quotes as yesterday. The most prevalent conventional 30yr fix...
Tue, Jul 19 2016, 10:38 AM
The Residential Construction Report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that, while both permits ...
Tue, Jul 19 2016, 9:22 AM
Summer time… barbecues, time in the sun, fun on the water – unless you’re in Michigan and you believe that rivers flow in circles and one spends thr...
Tue, Jul 19 2016, 8:49 AM
The concept of "the gap" is one of the most basic when it comes to analyzing charts of financial market movement. Under the most common definition of...
Tue, Jul 19 2016, 5:15 PM
In the magical sharing circle that is global financial markets, the "talking stick" was passed to bonds, as it is every day. But rather than share a ...
Tue, Jul 19 2016, 4:01 PM
Mortgage rates were sideways in some cases today, and very slightly lower in others, making for one of their better performances over the past few w...
Tue, Jul 19 2016, 2:43 PM
CoreLogic has cut back the timeline under which it expects to see distressed properties return to the share of sales that prevailed prior to the housi...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 10:45 AM
Rates have crept back up to pre-Brexit levels. Will the rates borrowers locked in during the last week of June be the stuff of cocktail party bragging...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 10:26 AM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said its Housing Market Index (HMI), which it produces in cooperation with Wells Fargo, barely budge...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 9:33 AM
Have you noticed a few more email auto-responses starting late last week? Summer travel season is in full swing and this week is an especially good "...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 6:18 PM
Friday afternoon was a complicated thing to think about when it comes to markets and their motivations for movement. Given the time of day that the T...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 5:23 PM
Mortgage rates remain under pressure over the past few weeks after hitting near-all-time lows in early July. With one exception, rates have been ei...
Fri, Jul 15 2016, 12:00 PM
During Happy Hour tonight you can work this one into the conversation: Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline. Is that a lot? It is more than Califor...
Fri, Jul 15 2016, 12:00 PM
Who is Gary Johnson? He’s the Libertarian candidate for president this year. And given the “unusual” presidential situation this year, and the current...
Fri, Jul 15 2016, 8:31 AM
Granted, economic data in the US is far from the only game in town at the moment. In fact, it's probably one of the least important games there is, ...
Fri, Jul 15 2016, 6:34 PM
Except for the very end of the trading session, today was all about domestic economic data and all about the logical bond market weakness that followe...
Fri, Jul 15 2016, 5:39 PM
Mortgage rates have been moving higher, in general, this week. That upward momentum tends to coincide with weakness in broader bond markets. For i...
Fri, Jul 15 2016, 3:30 PM
While markets don't believe the Fed will really raise interest rates this year, it could surprise them with at least one hike later in the year.
...
Thu, Jul 14 2016, 12:46 PM
New home sales are predicted to have dipped by a
fraction in June in a report Thursday from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Based on informa...
Thu, Jul 14 2016, 8:30 AM
Bonds are back on the ropes again to start the day as the Bank of England (BOE) surprised markets by holding rates steady. This was their way of fl...
Thu, Jul 14 2016, 5:20 PM
Bond markets weakened overnight as Yen/USD surged higher (meaning Yen is weakening versus the dollar). This has to do with the potential for new stim...
Thu, Jul 14 2016, 4:28 PM
Mortgage rates were slightly higher again today, and this time, it's personal! OK, so it's not really "personal," but it is now more of a concern f...
Wed, Jul 13 2016, 10:28 AM
“Cuz they ain’t makin’ any more of it” is the traditional response to the question about why should anyone buy real estate. But builders, straining to...
Wed, Jul 13 2016, 9:06 AM
Have you ever wondered why technical analysts and other seemingly savvy market commentators tend to reference moving averages that are nice, round nu...
Wed, Jul 13 2016, 8:18 AM
Record low interest rates coupled with a major American holiday made for a bit of chaos as regards mortgage applications. The Mortgage Bankers Asso...
