Fri, Dec 19 2014, 4:27 PM
Mortgage rates found their footing today, moving slightly lower after spending the past two days rising at the quickest pace in months. Most lend...
Fri, Dec 19 2014, 1:43 PM
RealtyTrac devotes the bulk of its most recent edition of HousingNewsReport , its monthly web
magazine to detailing some r eal estate investment str...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 12:14 PM
From time to time, the best way to recap market events through mid-day will be to revisit things that have already been written. Here's the first: M...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 10:15 AM
"Congress extends Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Act "
- hey, that's good news, right? In fact the Senate approved a bill that
would retroactively ext...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 7:49 AM
Where does yesterday's FOMC Announcement leave us in terms of the rate outlook? The same place we were before the FOMC Announcement!
The only thi...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 4:09 PM
Depending on where you want to draw the line between the overnight and domestic sessions, nothing really happened today. Bond markets were basically...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 3:00 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher at a much quicker pace today. This runs counter to the most widely-circulated weekly rate report from Freddie Mac, whi...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 1:22 PM
Referring to its " roller-coaster
pattern of economic growth," Fannie Mae summarized the economy and housing in
2014 as a year that started with a ...
Thu, Dec 18 2014, 1:03 PM
Fannie Mae's writers use the word "stable" repeatedly to
describe many of the findings from its fourth quarter 2014 Mortgage Lender
Sentiment Surv...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 12:46 PM
Treasuries once again broke away from the pack in the overnight session and moved higher in yield. Cues from related markets didn't suggest that wea...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 10:53 AM
For
folks who like paper and documentation, in 2015 nearby Iowa (I am in
Kansas for a few days) will become the first state to offer an official
...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 9:39 AM
Mortgage applications were down modestly during the week
ended December 12, with purchase applications accounting for the decline. The Mortgage Ba...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 7:33 AM
Today's FOMC Announcement at 2pm is a bit of a puzzler, because it has the capability to be one of the more important recent announcements. One reaso...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 5:23 PM
Mortgage rates rose at an acceptable pace
today, following the FOMC Announcement and press conference. Rates are
driven by bond markets (mortg...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 4:53 PM
Today's FOMC Announcement and ensuing press conference caused significant volatility (albeit, within a historically narrow range) for bond markets. O...
Wed, Dec 17 2014, 4:46 PM
The person who perhaps made it possible for state and
federal governments to collect billions from the Bank of America will apparently
be amply co...
Tue, Dec 16 2014, 12:32 PM
All three of the U.S. Census Bureau/Department of Housing
and Urban Development construction indicators dropped in November from their
October leve...
Tue, Dec 16 2014, 12:32 PM
To be clear, bond markets are still in strongly positive territory this morning, though they're off their best levels seen just after 7am.
Volatil...
Tue, Dec 16 2014, 10:44 AM
Looking at
things in a different way works very well in marketing as well. Carol
Kimball sent along something for Realtors out there: selling a ho...
Tue, Dec 16 2014, 7:32 AM
Bond markets lost ground yesterday, which is notable in the context of recent events because other markets didn't necessarily agree. By that, I mean ...
Tue, Dec 16 2014, 4:14 PM
As Fannie 3.5 MBS pushed over 104 and 10yr yields moved down toward 2%, it became increasingly clear that the bond market rally required an ever-larg...
Tue, Dec 16 2014, 3:14 PM
Mortgage rates fell decisively today, bringing some lenders back in line with rate sheets seen on May 22nd, 2013. That's significant because it wa...
Mon, Dec 15 2014, 12:18 PM
Naturally, most headlines continue to credit oil for everything that's happening everywhere. That may be true in a roundabout way, but it's a harder ...
Mon, Dec 15 2014, 10:58 AM
Builder confidence as measured by the National
Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Home Market Index (HMI) fell
back slightly in Decem...
Mon, Dec 15 2014, 10:43 AM
"What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day." Here are a few tips on how to avoid that. And avoiding mortga...
Mon, Dec 15 2014, 7:32 AM
The conventional wisdom regarding falling knives is to avoid trying to catch them. 2014's bond yields have been a quintessential example. At each ...
Mon, Dec 15 2014, 4:37 PM
Mortgage rates held steady today on average, but were slightly higher or lower depending on the lender. In either case, there hasn't been much mov...
Mon, Dec 15 2014, 2:00 PM
The BuildFax Remodeling Index for October
indicates a slight slowdown in the number of building permits issued for the
purpose of residential remode...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 12:51 PM
It's impossible to get away from oil headlines today. They're everywhere. Even smart people are succumbing to the temptation of oversimplifying the ...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 10:43 AM
"You
can tell a lot about a woman's mood just by her hands. If they are
holding a gun, she's probably ticked-off." Here's another observation,
b...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 7:32 AM
When the variables informing trading decisions are more confusing, more diverse, and/or more numerous than normal, there's one old standby to fall bac...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 5:24 PM
Bank of America was hit this week with
another civil penalty , this time for making what are termed excessive and
harassing mortgage debt collectio...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 5:19 PM
Good news! It seems that--thanks to some magical domino effect having to do with oil--that this week's market movements can't do anything else but co...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 5:19 PM
Amid the wrangling over the
budget and the CIA report the Senate did manage to extend some extra
foreclosure protections for military service memb...
Fri, Dec 12 2014, 4:16 PM
Mortgage rates improved again today rounding out an entire week of gains. They're nothing to shake a stick at, either. Although the most prevalen...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 12:18 PM
Bond markets had an uneventful overnight session for the most part. Heading into the 7am hour, yields improved to their lowest levels of the morning ...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 10:58 AM
"Karma
means that I can rest easy at night knowing that all the people I
treated badly had it coming." But there is also good karma, and the MBA
...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 7:33 AM
Bond markets seemingly rallied rather impressively yesterday. In other words, the magnitude of the gains and levels achieved would have been impres...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 5:18 PM
With 10yr yields less than half a bp lower and Fannie 3.5s and 3.0s a mere 1 tick lower, we're effectively unchanged to end the day. That's a victor...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 4:06 PM
Mortgage rates didn't move much today, depending on the lender. Lenders that reissued improved rate sheets yesterday afternoon are generally in th...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 3:34 PM
The Housing
Finance Policy Center, part of the Urban Institute, has released a new measure of
credit availability . In an article in
the Urban In...
Thu, Dec 11 2014, 1:31 PM
While overall foreclosure activity overall
continued its now years-long decline from housing crisis peaks there was a
significant year-over-year inc...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 12:54 PM
"Leak" is definitely one of those words that, if you say it enough, it starts to sound funny. One way to hear it pretty reliably is to tune in to the...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 10:32 AM
Winston
Churchill said, "There are a terrible lot of lies going around the
world, and the worst of it is half of them are true." Figures don't lie...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 9:49 AM
The
week ended December 5 was another of those post-holiday periods when mortgage
application data skews all over the place just as it did during th...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 7:32 AM
Late in November, I suggested that the first week of December would give us the information needed to identify the trend that would carry us into the ...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 4:39 PM
For two days in a row, the Fed hasn't had a Fannie/Freddie 30yr buying operation , and that's been painfully evident in the underperformance of MBS c...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 3:59 PM
Mortgage rates moved only slightly lower
today, but it was enough to bring the end-of-day average to the lowest
in more than a year an a half. ...
Wed, Dec 10 2014, 2:47 PM
Cash
sales continued to decline in importance in September. These sales, which represented close to half
of all home sales when foreclosures and le...
Tue, Dec 9 2014, 10:45 AM
No
one wants to see their companies and future employment batted around in
the press, but perhaps our brethren and Freddie and Fannie are
accust...
