Wed, May 20 2015, 9:13 AM
Mortgage application
volume continued a downward spiral during the week ended May 15. The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's)
Market Composite...
Wed, May 20 2015, 7:34 AM
Much has been made of today's FOMC Minutes as some sort of defining moment in the potential long-term shift toward higher rates. Some say it's a re...
Wed, May 20 2015, 5:18 PM
Mortgage rates are ending the day very close to unchanged , following what was--by all rights--a supportive reading of the Fed's April Meeting Min...
Wed, May 20 2015, 5:17 PM
In this morning's commentary , I said that anxiety over today's FOMC Minutes was misplaced when it comes to defining moments in a potential long-te...
Wed, May 20 2015, 1:17 PM
Earlier this week Freddie Mac asked if the housing market recovery could
withstand a rate increase (the answer, with some qualification was yes). No...
Wed, May 20 2015, 1:16 PM
On the whole, it's been a quiet day for bond markets, with the assumption being that volatility will increase after the 2pm release of the FOMC Minut...
Tue, May 19 2015, 11:41 AM
There
are 1,700 capital markets folks wandering around Manhattan, and one of
the topics is that one week Janet Yellen and other Fed officials are ...
Tue, May 19 2015, 10:30 AM
Residential construction numbers soared in April after a
dismal March and both the number of residential permits issued and housing
starts easil...
Tue, May 19 2015, 7:34 AM
The Fed is yet to come this week and that could be the first good opportunity for bonds to decide on their next move from the past few days of consoli...
Tue, May 19 2015, 5:24 PM
Someone wants us to think that rates are heading abruptly higher. Well, to be fair, it's not so much about wanting anyone to think anything. It has ...
Tue, May 19 2015, 3:41 PM
Mortgage rates continued higher at an unsettling pace today, following an exceptionally strong reading on Residential Construction data. This part...
Tue, May 19 2015, 2:00 PM
That headline question is the focus of the May Economic and Housing Outlook produced by
Freddie mac's Office of the Chief Economist.
The economic...
Tue, May 19 2015, 1:22 PM
Remember the "QE-on vs QE-off" trading in 2013? In an extremely overt way, stocks and bonds rallied and sold together based on constantly evolving ...
Mon, May 18 2015, 12:54 PM
Last Monday saw an unpleasant reversal of 2 days of gains heading into the previous weekend. Now this Monday is going through some of the same motion...
Mon, May 18 2015, 12:10 PM
While they were discussing different vintages, home sellers
have a slightly more upbeat outlook on home sales then do the builders of those
homes. ...
Mon, May 18 2015, 9:40 AM
The
last seven days has involved a little travel for me: Oregon, Incline
Village in Nevada, and now Manhattan for the MBA's Secondary Marketing
...
Mon, May 18 2015, 7:34 AM
If you've been out for 3-4 weeks, welcome back. Bonds have been selling off rather abruptly and now we're hoping for a bounce. We thought we had one...
Mon, May 18 2015, 5:16 PM
After Thursday and Friday of last week mimicked the previous Thursday and Friday, it was fair to wonder if we'd get another ugly Monday today. Whil...
Mon, May 18 2015, 5:01 PM
"Everyone working in the mortgage business feels
like there is a giant target on their backs ," David H. Stevens said in remarks
prepared for deliv...
Mon, May 18 2015, 4:34 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher out of the gate for a second straight week, though today's jump was smaller than last Monday's. The most prevalent con...
Fri, May 15 2015, 12:54 PM
Be warned that the following reduces a complex, multifaceted issue to one of its individual components. It's merely an examination of this one comp...
Fri, May 15 2015, 10:53 AM
It's all relative. The Mortgage
Bankers Association (MBA) said that applications for the purchase of newly
constructed homes rose a scant 0.3 perc...
Fri, May 15 2015, 10:43 AM
The NMLS has commenced a study on the role of a MLO -
besides being at the receiving end of jokes about AARP in the
workplace. All kidding aside,...
Fri, May 15 2015, 7:34 AM
Things were looking up as of yesterday's close. After weeks of selling off with only a brief 1.5 day correction last Thursday and Friday, bonds fina...
Fri, May 15 2015, 6:09 PM
Remember last Thursday and Friday? Those were pretty good! It sure looked like bonds had had enough weakness for a while and might start to consolid...
Fri, May 15 2015, 4:52 PM
Mortgage rates improved for a second day, and ended at their lowest levels for a second straight week. The most prevalent conventional 30yr fixe...
Fri, May 15 2015, 3:55 PM
Any change in interest rates will be sprung on the markets
if John Williams, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco president, gets his
way. While w...
Fri, May 15 2015, 3:41 PM
There was an unusual degree of consensus
at a Congressional hearing on implementation of the new Truth-in-Lending (TILA)
and RESPA Integrated Disclo...
Thu, May 14 2015, 11:04 AM
This will largely be a rehash of the morning update that MBS Live members have already seen, as we haven't been treated to the morning volatility ...
Thu, May 14 2015, 10:22 AM
Lenders originated 1.55 million residential
mortgage loans during the first quarter of 2015. The number, includes loan originations for
both purch...
Thu, May 14 2015, 10:17 AM
Quicken Loans, besides raising $1.25 billion in debt (leaving folks wondering if that is what attorneys to fight HUD & the DOJ cost these days), rel...
Thu, May 14 2015, 7:34 AM
If bond markets are going to make something happen with their recent attempts to establish support at the weakest levels of 2015, it would be nice if ...
Thu, May 14 2015, 4:05 PM
In recent weeks, we've increasingly discussed the concept of " supply ." This has largely been driven by the ramp up in corporate debt issuance creat...
Thu, May 14 2015, 3:29 PM
Mortgage rates finally caught a break today. This is quite a welcome development (indeed, yesterday's commentary pointed out that no breaks were b...
Thu, May 14 2015, 3:22 PM
The Housing and Insurance subcommittee of the House
Financial Services Committee has scheduled a hearing this afternoon titled "TILA- RESPA
Integrat...
Wed, May 13 2015, 12:46 PM
The headline is the extend of the story this morning. We began the day in positive territory, but have been pulled into negative territory by Europea...
Wed, May 13 2015, 10:57 AM
The influence of cash sales on the residential real estate
market continued to decline in February with those sales accounting for 37.9
percent of...
Wed, May 13 2015, 10:50 AM
Rising
interest rates took a toll on mortgage applications again during the week ended
May 8. The Mortgage Bankers Association said
that its Marke...
Wed, May 13 2015, 10:47 AM
In
1963 President John F. Kennedy designated May as Senior Citizens Month
and then in 1980 President Jimmy Carter changed the name to Older Ameri...
Wed, May 13 2015, 7:34 AM
Who's to say if the next correction will be like the last correction which lasted all of 1.5 days before bonds got blasted again? But even the bigges...
Wed, May 13 2015, 4:02 PM
No love for bond markets...
That's the only possible takeaway after a day where technicals are stacking up in a friendly way, Retail Sales and seve...
Wed, May 13 2015, 3:31 PM
Mortgage rates can't catch a break . They're not much higher than yesterday, but yesterday was already the worst of 2015 .
Actually, it's the b...
Tue, May 12 2015, 10:56 AM
While the decline in foreclosure activity is still ragged on
a month-to-month basis significant changes are increasingly evident
year-over-year. ...
Tue, May 12 2015, 10:50 AM
Incremental
increases in credit access continued in April according to the Mortgage Bankers
Association's Credit Availability Index (MCAI).
The In...
Tue, May 12 2015, 10:46 AM
I
am attending a conference in Oregon and yesterday someone asked me,
"Rob, have you heard of the MBA doing something to educate anyone in
schoo...
Tue, May 12 2015, 7:34 AM
In some ways and in some instances , past precedent can have some sort of predictive value. 9 times out of 10 though, it's only the sort of thing ...
Tue, May 12 2015, 5:17 PM
Who can forget this classic quip when asked why rates are higher: "more sellers than buyers?" OK, so maybe that's not so classic, depending on your...
Tue, May 12 2015, 3:55 PM
Mortgage rates moved disconcertingly higher again today, despite the fact that underlying market levels actually improved during the day. Guaran...
Tue, May 12 2015, 1:29 PM
Bonds were horribly weaker yet again overnight, and the same old factors are in play. These aren't glamorous, satisfying to understand, or easy to ex...
Mon, May 11 2015, 10:52 AM
Taking a quick look at what people are doing with their money, just 14% of American households own individual stocks,
according to Federal Reserve d...
