Thu, Apr 25 2013, 4:34 PM
It's almost as if bond markets have been in a slow motion countdown to next week's events since April 15th. We've seen essentially no movement during...
Thu, Apr 25 2013, 4:15 PM
The House Ways and Means Committee heard a wide variety of opinions today at a hearing on housing tax incentives . Representatives of the housing, b...
Thu, Apr 25 2013, 3:18 PM
Mortgage rates were microscopically higher today, doing very little to change the pervasive theme of narrow, sideways movement this week. In fact,...
Thu, Apr 25 2013, 2:13 PM
CoreLogic, an Irvine, California based provider of property information, analytics and services, announced today that it had acquired Case-Shiller f...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 12:28 PM
In its Quarterly Report submitted to Congress on Wednesday, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 11:58 AM
The overnight session started out flat for bond markets and grew weaker in the early hours of the morning. A push back against the moderate weakness...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 11:02 AM
Was the dramatic deleveraging of American households during the financial crisis solely the result of charge offs and defaults or were there other f...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 10:15 AM
In spite of all the increased regulations and underwriting criteria that require borrowers to actually qualify, mortgage applications are hanging in t...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 8:19 AM
Mortgage applications for both home purchases and refinancing increased slightly in what was essentially a lackadaisical week that ended April 19. ...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 8:13 AM
Wednesday then, becomes somewhat more important i n the sense that it has an opportunity to confirm a breakout on the daily chart if and only if it c...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 4:23 PM
The overall trading range in MBS was 6 ticks from peak to trough, but that doesn't really tell the story of the flatness. With the exception of the f...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 2:21 PM
Mortgage rates continued their recent pattern of limited movement, rising almost imperceptibly today. This keeps them in line with recent lows, w...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 2:20 PM
A new survey conducted by United States Appraisals found a majority of appraisers are at least somewhat bullish on the current housing market. Over 5...
Wed, Apr 24 2013, 1:23 PM
In an attempt to increase public knowledge about the availability of the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) which has just been extended for an...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 11:37 AM
All of the housing metrics released today by Lender Processing Services (LPS) showed movement in a positive direction . LPS generally provides a "f...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 11:29 AM
Tradeflows have been a much bigger consideration this morning than the reaction to economic data. To that end, bond markets were on a mission to retu...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 11:08 AM
New home sales increased to 417,000 units on a seasonally adjusted annual basis in March. This was a 1.5 percent increase from the revised estimate...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 11:02 AM
We were reminded that the CFPB's " Final Rules " aren't necessarily final when it issued proposed clarifications to rules dealing with servicer-held e...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 9:50 AM
U.S. house prices rose 0.7
percent from January to February according to data released this morning by the
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).
...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 9:40 AM
Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee announced yesterday that the committee would not be accepting testimony fr...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 6:48 PM
Today's trading range turned out to be fairly similar to Monday's, with a notable exception. In both cases, the wider part of the range was seen in t...
Tue, Apr 23 2013, 2:27 PM
Mortgage rates barely moved today, but the modest improvements were enough to bring them as close as they've been to 2013 lows in more than three ...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 11:47 AM
Before MBS began trading this morning, the overnight session was mostly negative for Treasuries. Asian equities were led higher by the Nikkei after t...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 11:15 PM
April has been a pleasant month for MBS so far. Eleven out of the 16 trading days have been positive. Only 3 of the 5 down days have been more than ...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 11:09 AM
Despite the beginning of the traditionally busy spring market, existing home sales declined slightly in March , owing primarily to continuing tight i...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 9:39 AM
Wells Fargo has decided that it time to embark on a $100 million expansion in Iowa : This is in spite of the industry concerned about less volume an...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 8:03 AM
Several weeks of relative silence out of the EU may soon be coming to an end. Certainly, market moving European news hasn't been completely absent th...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 4:23 PM
If the PM hours were the only consideration for MBS markets today, it would have been as uneventful as Friday's super narrow session. Even without th...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 4:02 PM
After what it called years of tenuous signals indicating that the housing recovery was underway Standard & Poor's (S&P) Ratings Service say this ti...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 2:51 PM
Mortgage rates were essentially flat to begin the week, with most lenders inconsequentially higher or lower than Friday's levels. That puts today...
Mon, Apr 22 2013, 1:34 PM
Last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued proposed clarifications to one of its 2013 Finals Rules , the one applying to servic...
Fri, Apr 19 2013, 12:21 PM
Trading ranges like today's are occasionally referred to as "inside days" due to the highs and lows resting "inside" yesterday's highs and lows. Insi...
Fri, Apr 19 2013, 7:13 AM
Although Friday's economic calendar is utterly empty, we're getting closer and closer to a time when decisions must be made as far as the trading mome...
Fri, Apr 19 2013, 4:14 PM
The day and the week had potential. As far as today was concerned, it was yet another chance to test the incessantly firm resistance that's capped the...
Fri, Apr 19 2013, 1:24 PM
Mortgage rates were very slightly lower today, but the improvement was just enough to leave most lenders at their best rates of the week. We have...
Fri, Apr 19 2013, 1:13 PM
The median price of a home in California
shot up in March to $313,000 from 289,000 in February, a one-month increase of
8.3 percent . The spike ...
Fri, Apr 19 2013, 1:08 PM
Like it or not, a lot of those people buying homes use a government-related housing program. FHA & VA lenders know that biz is good. Ginnie Mae has ...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 12:55 PM
Edward J. DeMarco, Acting Director of
the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) appeared before the Senate Banking
Committee today. According to hi...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 12:01 PM
The overnight session provided the week's best examples of logical cause and effect. Germany's parliamentary approval of the Cyprus bailout along wit...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 10:32 AM
Earlier this week I received a note from the owner of a mortgage bank in Pennsylvania. "Rob, with all this 3% cap talk going on [editor's note: it i...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 8:05 AM
Bond markets may be getting ready to make a bigger movement in the near future for several technical and fundamental reasons. From a technical standp...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 4:11 PM
The past two days have been interesting for bond markets and MBS as the realized volatility (the gaps between the highs and the lows) has remained w...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 3:58 PM
Fannie Mae's economists note that
economic growth was very choppy during the second half of 2012 because of
inventory swings and the same is expecte...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 3:03 PM
The Consumer Finance Protection Agency
( CFPB ) has released a report highlighting problems with what it called " senior
designation " credentials. ...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 2:56 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged today, with some lenders raising costs just slightly while others were markedly improved. Taken together, there was...
Thu, Apr 18 2013, 2:33 PM
Gallup said today that more than half of
Americans expect average home prices in their local area to increase over the
next year. Fifty-one per...
Wed, Apr 17 2013, 12:42 PM
"Does the price of gold impact mortgage rates ?" No, not really, but both move based on supply and demand, political uncertainty, current events, an...
Wed, Apr 17 2013, 12:28 PM
Bank of America (BOA)
reported net income in the first quarter of 2013 of $2.6 billion or $0.20 per
diluted share, up from net income of $653 millio...
Wed, Apr 17 2013, 11:54 AM
The resistance theme of the week remains in play for MBS and Treasuries. Neither market has been able to successfully challenge the week's best level...
Wed, Apr 17 2013, 11:21 AM
Wells Fargo Bank's
Economics Group has issued commentary on housing which updates
concerns it says it has raised over the past few month "that the ...
