Thu, Feb 21 2013, 11:55 AM
Both MBS and Treasuries continue to trade at their best levels since
last Tuesday but remain blocked by technical resistance for now. The
combina...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 11:09 AM
Fannie Mae's economists said on Thursday that, despite the feeble note on which 2012 ended, the economy has the building blocks, including housing, f...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 10:22 AM
Calling the current residential
appraisal system " impaired ," the National Association of Homebuilders
( NAHB ) has issued a white paper recommendi...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 8:45 AM
Hey, the next time you are dreading the job of giving that quarterly review to that obstinate employee, think about this task. Companies are looking ...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 8:01 AM
While Wednesday's FOMC Minutes delivered all the short term volatility
we might have expected, it was all meted to equities markets. Bond
markets...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 4:56 PM
When is strength actually weakness in disguise? This is not a trick
question. It's probably applicable to many topics, but today it runs
the ris...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 4:31 PM
The five mortgage servicers involved in
last year's $25 billion settlement over servicer errors and abuses have now
distributed an average of $82,...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 4:11 PM
Mortgage delinquency rates fell in the fourth quarter of 2012 to their
lowest rates since 2008. According to
data from the National Delinquency Su...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 4:09 PM
Mortgage
rates fell slightly today, pulling back in line with recent
offerings after rising to their highest levels in 7 months yesterday.
T...
Thu, Feb 21 2013, 2:16 PM
The National Association of Realtors®
(NAR) said today that a sellers' market is developing in real estate as home sales
edge up and home prices c...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 11:59 AM
The share of refinancing relative to all mortgage originations increased
sharply in January, rising from 69 percent the previous month to 73 percen...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 11:44 AM
What had been a tentative move off the lows at first soon turned into a
more decisive swing back into positive territory. Earlier weakness was
la...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 11:41 AM
The Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) and the Census Bureau said this morning that permits for
residential construction were issue...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 11:31 AM
I am in Kansas today. Before the congratulatory e-mails flood in, I mention this because I flew here. (In an airplane.) Per our very own Transportatio...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 8:27 AM
Mortgage application volume dropped
again during the week ended February 15.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported this morning that its Mar...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 7:18 AM
Here's another one of those sessions where a big-ticket market event
has lots of potential to move markets, but no obligation to do so.
Since N...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 6:10 PM
Bond markets continued to heal after dodging a few of the same
old bullets from FOMC Minutes. This time around, ongoing QE expectations
were calle...
Wed, Feb 20 2013, 4:53 PM
Mortgage
rates avoided the larger-scale swings that they might have considering the important data on tap today. Instead, they merely began the ...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 11:59 AM
Bond markets traded fairly well overnight and remained in an exceedingly
narrow range throughout. Both MBS and Treasuries hit New York just
barely...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 11:05 AM
According to the National
Association of Home Builders (NAHB), its NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index
(HMI) for February was virtually unchange...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 10:58 AM
Three researchers have looked at private label residential mortgage-backed securities sold to investors in 2007 and concluded there was substantial...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 10:37 AM
Yesterday the commentary had some statistics on Florida lagging in price appreciation, which many attribute to the " judicial versus non-judicial " fo...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 7:50 AM
Friday started simply enough with MBS and Treasuries relatively in
line with Thursday's latest levels, but bond markets soon began giving
up groun...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 4:29 PM
There wasn't much going on today. This includes the overnight session, the morning "busy" hours (when Europe is still trading a nd the domestic se...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 3:52 PM
Mortgage
rates began the day flat to slightly lower before market
weakness in the afternoon caused many lenders to release negatively
revised...
Tue, Feb 19 2013, 3:16 PM
Just a little over a year after the Home
Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) was substantially revised into HARP 2.0 it
has reached nearly as many h...
Fri, Feb 15 2013, 11:28 AM
Quite simply, MBS are right back in line with the center of yesterday morning's trading range. While this is technically "bad" because it keeps price...
Fri, Feb 15 2013, 10:43 AM
I receive a lot of questions , some very specific and others very broad reaching. These two have implications that our industry should think about:
...
Fri, Feb 15 2013, 10:04 AM
Three
of the senators who helped frame parts of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 have again written to financia...
Fri, Feb 15 2013, 7:37 AM
Thursday, with it's 30yr Bond Auction and survey week Jobless Claims numbers, stood a decent chance the break the recent monotony for broader bo...
Fri, Feb 15 2013, 1:36 PM
Mortgage rates moved modestly higher for some lenders today, while others remained closer to unchanged territory. Following Wednesday's swing to 6-mo...
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 11:41 AM
A good measure of weakness worked its way through bond markets early in the overnight session. Asian market hours saw 10yr yields climb over 2.06 bri...
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 11:40 AM
While I sit here kicking myself for not owning the stock in catsup maker Heinz (up 20% this morning because of being purchased by Berkshire Hathaway),...
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 11:04 AM
Foreclosure
activity in much of the nation now appears to be accelerating downward,
dropping 7 percent in a single month according to RealtyTrac....
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 7:37 AM
This morning's Jobless Claims numbers are from the same week that the survey for next month's NFP numbers is being conducted. As such, a big miss or ...
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 4:30 PM
Even with the
unexpected decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of
2012, Freddie Mac's chief economist Frank
E. Notha...
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 4:18 PM
Treasury yields rose into scary territory overnight and remained fairly scary even in the morning hours as 10's pushed up over 2.05 after the stronger...
Thu, Feb 14 2013, 3:18 PM
Mortgage rates moved slightly lower this afternoon after beginning the day in line with yesterday's worst levels of the year. Things looked relati...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 12:17 PM
Bond markets were against the ropes from the outset this morning as a healthy clip of overnight data and events in Europe pressured safe-haven German ...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 11:22 AM
The talk in the halls here in Houston at the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association secondary conference is about a) diminishing margins for 2013, and b...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 8:37 AM
As rates rose the volume of mortgage
applications fell during the week ended February 8 according to the Mortgage
Bankers Association's (MBA) Week...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 7:31 AM
The afternoon's top tier event arrives at 1pm with the 10yr Treasury Auction. Given the recently more rapid evolution of the yield curve, markets may...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 5:05 PM
It's interesting to consider that today's weakness was essentially present from the outset ("interesting" in an awful, painful sort of way). In anoth...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 4:13 PM
Mortgage rates surged higher at their quickest pace since late January on Wednesday eclipsing the previous highs of the year seen around the same t...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 4:05 PM
NAHB
Chairman Rick Judson said the
nation's home builders were very pleased to hear President Obama acknowledge the
extremely tight mortgage credi...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 3:43 PM
On Wednesday the
House Financial Services Committee held a second in a scheduled series of hearings to look
into the financial condition of the Fed...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 3:18 PM
The
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( CFPB ) today announced five steps it will
take to assist the mortgage industry to comply with new consu...
Wed, Feb 13 2013, 2:43 PM
A consortium of consumer advocates is criticizing a recent decision by the
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) regarding Fannie Mae's attempt to ...
Tue, Feb 12 2013, 11:47 AM
Euros surged in the early AM, setting the tone for Treasuries and equities, which looked willing to head in either direction until then. Domestic trad...
Tue, Feb 12 2013, 10:22 AM
TransUnion said today that the serious mortgage
delinquency rate is heading downhill at a quickening pace, however long term
delinquencies and the...