Wed, Aug 18 2021, 11:28 AM
Technology is nice (the latest bit being UWM’s goal of accepting bitcoin by year end; magnetic strips on credit cards are going away ), but our indust...
Wed, Aug 18 2021, 10:28 AM
The Fed has increasingly been discussing its tapering strategy. They haven't been shy about saying so. In fact, at least 5 members have vocally supp...
Wed, Aug 18 2021, 8:09 AM
Mortgage application volume was lower over the last week, continuing the up-one-week, down-the-next pattern it has displayed since late June. The Mort...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 3:51 PM
What's Up With MBS Underperformance Today?
As long as we're not dealing with big, obvious, unique market rea...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 3:34 PM
Mortgage applications for the purchase of newly built homes fell sharply in July, but the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said it expects new home ...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 3:19 PM
Mortgage rates experienced an uptick in volatility last week as the broader bond market was hit with a big dose of new supply. In other words, between...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 12:36 PM
Fears about construction costs, supply shortages, and concern over fast rising home prices acted to deflate builder confidence this month. The Nationa...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 12:32 PM
While home prices have been posting record increases for months, it appears that rents are trying to keep up. CoreLogic says the connection is clear. ...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 11:20 AM
The 10-year yield back down to 1.24 percent!? Watch those early pay off penalties. Along those lines, are you servicing loans? Mind your p’s and q’s, ...
Tue, Aug 17 2021, 10:06 AM
The Retail Sales report is generally considered to be in the upper echelon of economic reports when it comes to bond market impact. As such, it's som...
Mon, Aug 16 2021, 4:46 PM
Drifty Day, Treasuries Hold Weekly Gains, MBS Underperform.
With a strong move last Friday, the bond market ...
Mon, Aug 16 2021, 11:04 AM
People ask me what I do when I finish the commentary and send it out. This will give you an inkling . I don’t know if folks at United Wholesale do the...
Mon, Aug 16 2021, 10:55 AM
Just when you thought rates were bouncing higher after hitting 6 month lows, the new week begins with bonds re-staking a claim to the recent, strong...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 4:29 PM
Unexpected Snowball Rally After Consumer Sentiment Data
Snowball moves in markets, by their nature, tend to ...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 11:16 AM
The number of loans in forbearance dropped by 83,000 over the last week. This is on top of a 71,000 loan reduction during the first few days of August...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 11:16 AM
Even though lumber prices have recently declined, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) says builders are facing some of the fastest increa...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 11:09 AM
All but one of the 183 metropolitan housing markets tracked by the National Realtors Association® (NAR) posted annual price increases in the second qu...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 11:06 AM
It has been under discussion for what seems like forever, but Fannie Mae will begin to recognize non-reported types of credit performance in qualifyin...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 10:54 AM
As potential buyers of odd properties cogitate on Boston’s Skinny House (reportedly built to spite the owner’s neighbor & brother), and our industry m...
Fri, Aug 13 2021, 10:30 AM
The current week fills a corrective role in the bigger picture, helping to officially mark the end of 4 straight months of accelerating improvement (w...
Thu, Aug 12 2021, 5:05 PM
Less Volatility For Bonds (For Now)
As the week winds down, a potentially scary shift into a steeper rising ...
Thu, Aug 12 2021, 10:45 AM
Mortgage credit access rose slightly in July but remains in the nether regions to which it dropped last fall in the wake of the pandemic. The Mortgage...
Thu, Aug 12 2021, 10:41 AM
“I hope that I never go to jail because I haven’t memorized a phone number since 2001.” (Speaking of numbers, investors are mulling over Guild’s 2 nd ...
Thu, Aug 12 2021, 10:03 AM
Yesterday marked "the roll" for 30yr fixed UMBS (what's this?), but that's not all that was rolling. The proverbial "good times" began--well, you kno...
Wed, Aug 11 2021, 6:51 PM
By now, it's no mystery that mortgage rates are significantly higher than they were last week. The bigger mystery had to do with what comes next. In s...
Wed, Aug 11 2021, 5:32 PM
Great Bounce After Auction. What Now?
We were hoping--perhaps even expecting (to some extent)--to see the r...
Wed, Aug 11 2021, 11:30 AM
Bonds have recently been on a rather sharp selling spree leading up to and away from last Friday's jobs report. After that it was the following Wedne...
Wed, Aug 11 2021, 11:29 AM
Lenders always have a lot going on. Like “significant competitive pressure and volatility in the capital markets,” as evidenced by Home Point’s $73 mi...
Wed, Aug 11 2021, 10:40 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, rose 2.8 percent on a seasona...
Tue, Aug 10 2021, 3:32 PM
Purchase loans finally regained the catbird seat in June, edging out the share of refinance loans by 3 percentage points . ICE Mortgage Technology rep...
Tue, Aug 10 2021, 3:28 PM
Corporate Bonds Making Life Tough This Week
As feared and expected, the combination of Treasury auctions and...
Tue, Aug 10 2021, 2:24 PM
After hitting 6-month lows early last week, mortgage rates bounced and have been moving higher ever since. The increases were moderate at first, but t...
Tue, Aug 10 2021, 12:00 PM
Bonds are still in the process of trying to find a ceiling after embarking on a decisive uptrend that began in the middle of last week and accelerated...
Tue, Aug 10 2021, 10:51 AM
While the national delinquency rate has not returned to the 3.5 percent rate it had reached before the onset of the pandemic, CoreLogic says the perce...
Tue, Aug 10 2021, 10:47 AM
It was one week ago that the “benchmark” 10-year yield hit 1.17 percent. Now we’re back up to 1.32, the same yield that we saw for much of early and m...
Mon, Aug 9 2021, 3:28 PM
Bonds Turn Red Early, But Outright Losses Were Minimal
The week began with refreshing stability and modest g...
Mon, Aug 9 2021, 2:50 PM
Consumer sentiment about buying a house fell even further into negative territory in July. Fannie Mae said that only 28 percent of respondents to its ...
Mon, Aug 9 2021, 10:47 AM
Last week I was in Orange County at the Insellerate Experience Summit 21, and this week I am 2,500 miles away in Orlando, FL at the Lenders One Summit...
Mon, Aug 9 2021, 10:33 AM
If bonds needed an excuse to move up and out of their lowest range since February, last week's jobs report provided enough of an opportunity for selle...
Fri, Aug 6 2021, 3:56 PM
Bigger Picture Bounce Becomes Bigger Risk, But Not The only Risk
Friday's strong jobs report certainly deser...
Fri, Aug 6 2021, 12:38 PM
Thanks to rising home prices. hardly any homeowners find themselves underwater on their mortgages and the few that do are concentrated in a few cities...
Fri, Aug 6 2021, 11:15 AM
NFP printed at 943k vs a median forecast of 870k. The previous month was revised up by 88k as well. Unemployment ticked down to 5.4% vs a 5.7% forec...
Fri, Aug 6 2021, 11:04 AM
We live in world of numbers. It has been 76 years since an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Let’s hope nothing close, with its 140,000 instantaneou...
Thu, Aug 5 2021, 4:47 PM
Freddie Mae has announced a new single-close mortgage product that will allow homeowners to finance the cost of small scale renovations. The CHOICERen...
Thu, Aug 5 2021, 4:28 PM
Bonds Definitely Playing Defense Ahead of NFP
Friday's nonfarm payrolls data (NFP) will be more important th...
Thu, Aug 5 2021, 3:11 PM
Mortgage rates moved up from 6-month lows yesterday and that trend continued today. This time around, we didn't have any obvious culprits on the econo...
Thu, Aug 5 2021, 11:28 AM
“Why was the mortgage so depressed? Because it was a loan.” Yes, cutting-edge humor like that is why you read this commentary. No MLO should be depres...
Thu, Aug 5 2021, 10:02 AM
Bonds have been increasingly willing to react to economic data as we approach the fall months (the time frame in which the Fed's taper announcement be...
Wed, Aug 4 2021, 4:20 PM
Mortgage rates hit their best levels in 6 months yesterday, but moved higher today following a strong report on the services sector. The economy is on...
Wed, Aug 4 2021, 4:17 PM
Freddie Mac reported this week that its total mortgage portfolio increased at an annualized rate of 12.9 percent in June compared to an 8.6 percent ga...
