Tue, Jul 19 2016, 9:22 AM
Summer time… barbecues, time in the sun, fun on the water – unless you’re in Michigan and you believe that rivers flow in circles and one spends thr...
Mon, Jul 18 2016, 10:45 AM
Rates have crept back up to pre-Brexit levels. Will the rates borrowers locked in during the last week of June be the stuff of cocktail party bragging...
Fri, Jul 1 2016, 11:24 AM
The Fourth of July is Monday...the date of the Declaration of Independence (quibble all you want about late signers); the next commentary will be Tues...
Mon, Jun 27 2016, 10:12 AM
Everyone is talking about the future of the European Union. Tad Dahlke sends, “Brexit to be followed by Grexit, Departugal, Italeave, Fruckoff, Czech...
Fri, Jun 17 2016, 10:38 AM
Residential construction data released this morning showed both housing starts and permits holding fairly steady in May compared to April, but while...
Fri, Jun 17 2016, 9:11 AM
There are plenty of owners remodeling their houses. (If you want to take the time, the National Association of Home Builders ranks the 25,000 ZIP code...
Tue, Jun 14 2016, 10:19 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is predicated a 6 percent decline in new home sales in May compared to April. The forecast is based on the a...
Mon, Jun 13 2016, 7:58 AM
Everyone's thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the horrible shooting in Orlando. But yes, Father's Day is coming up, and the first presidenti...
Wed, Jun 1 2016, 10:50 AM
Construction spending continued to disappoint in April, but unlike in the preceding three months, residential construction also declined. The Census...
Wed, Jun 1 2016, 9:36 AM
Fed Chair Janet Yellen appears to be doing her part to warn the markets that the odds of a short-term rate hike in the next few months are pretty goo...
Tue, May 31 2016, 10:17 AM
Research by the EBRI on retirement finds while 67% of workers plan to work for pay in retirement, only 27% of retirees do so. Of the retirees who work...
Wed, May 18 2016, 7:56 AM
Here in New York the airplanes will be filled with capital markets staff and CEOs heading home from the MBA’s conference. More observations tomorrow.....
Wed, May 18 2016, 4:02 PM
As Fannie Mae did earlier in its May Economic Summary, Freddie Mac today downgraded its outlook for economic growth for the remainder of 2016. And ...
Wed, May 18 2016, 3:57 PM
Fannie Mae has again downgraded expectations for economic growth in 2016. Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist and the ESR Macroeco...
Tue, May 17 2016, 10:09 AM
Permits for residential construction reversed a four-month slide in April and housing starts bounced back from a sharp March decline. The increases ...
Tue, May 17 2016, 8:59 AM
Here’s something the funders can try in the lunch room today: bet a shipper that they can't catch a dropped dollar bill with their fingers.
Last ...
Mon, May 16 2016, 9:22 AM
The European Central Bank has been collecting data on cyber-instances at 18 major banks as part of a pilot program that will be expanded to other le...
Tue, May 3 2016, 10:38 AM
Change is all around us. The Wall Street Journal reports that the CFPB plans to bring the largest online lending platforms under its supervision by ...
Mon, May 2 2016, 10:21 AM
Do mortgage loan originators think that they can’t go to prison for something they did ten years ago? They'd better think again . And let's not f...
Mon, May 2 2016, 1:16 PM
Overall construction spending rose 0.3 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.14 trillion compared to $1.13 trillion in Februar...
Wed, Apr 27 2016, 9:49 AM
The “Tiny Home” movement is interesting, but 84 square feet ? That is enough to store my Hot Wheels, Match Box, and slot car collections. Am I thinki...
Tue, Apr 26 2016, 9:18 AM
With news swirling of US Bank’s mortgage reorganization last week, let’s not forget the regulator that touches every residential lender: the CFPB. T...
Tue, Apr 26 2016, 3:49 PM
Housing remains the bright spot in a darkening economic outlook according to Freddie Mac's economists. Though they have revised their forecast for ec...
Wed, Apr 20 2016, 9:51 AM
Fannie Mae's economists said Friday that housing indicators continue to be mixed. In the company's April Economic and Strategic Research report Senio...
Wed, Apr 20 2016, 9:44 AM
I was just in Denver the last few days where they were gearing up for the Colorado 420 celebration. But there’s not much to celebrate if you work for ...
Tue, Apr 19 2016, 10:59 AM
There probably isn't a lot of
backslapping going on in the housing world this morning. March residential construction data released
by the U.S. Cen...
Tue, Apr 19 2016, 9:49 AM
“Drive til you qualify.” That’s a little real estate agent ditty to start a Tuesday, and this advice to buyers certainly applies to urban areas where ...
Mon, Apr 18 2016, 10:42 AM
“Control the rules, control the outcome.” This old saying will be of particular interest in upcoming political events… or mortgage company lawsuits & ...
Fri, Apr 1 2016, 11:30 AM
Private spending on residential construction remained in positive territory in February even as overall construction, especially in the public secto...
Fri, Apr 1 2016, 4:59 PM
Freddie Mac predicted in its monthly Outlook on Thursday that 2016 might be the best year for housing in a decade with most sectors, sales, constr...
Tue, Mar 29 2016, 12:02 PM
Home price gains continued strong in January with the S&P/Case-Shiller indices closely tracking three of the four other major January home price repor...
Mon, Mar 28 2016, 12:18 PM
Banks and non-bank mortgage companies aren’t enemies, but plenty of non-bank lenders are envious of the ability of banks to offer HELOCs and other p...
Tue, Mar 22 2016, 10:29 AM
Fannie Mae's Economic Summary for March reports an improvement in financial market conditions and reduced concerns about an imminent risk of reces...
Thu, Mar 17 2016, 10:22 AM
A North Carolina builder knows how to give Millennials want they want. Garman Homes, based out of Cary, NC has created Fresh Paint, a brand catered t...
Wed, Mar 16 2016, 10:04 AM
Does anyone really know for sure what happens in China? With that many billion people there are a lot of moving parts. For example, the PBOC is easin...
Wed, Mar 16 2016, 9:49 AM
Housing starts recovered from a disappointing January report in February but permits declined for the third consecutive month according to data rele...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 9:43 AM
Americans have regained most of the wealth lost when the real estate bubble burst. Homeowners' equity has more or less doubled since the lows of 20...
Wed, Mar 2 2016, 10:55 AM
March... St. Patrick's Day, the religious holiday to honor St. Patrick who introduced Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century. Fortunately there ...
Wed, Mar 2 2016, 1:45 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) took an in-depth look at one aspect of the Census Bureau's report on January construction expenditure...
Tue, Mar 1 2016, 11:32 AM
Publicly funded construction accounted for most of the gain in overall construction spending in January. The Census Department said on Tuesday that...
Tue, Mar 1 2016, 10:57 AM
I head to Atlanta today for a conference on preventing fraud, and decided to see what its housing market has been up to recently. It turns out that At...
Mon, Feb 29 2016, 10:31 AM
Lenders everywhere are looking forward to a great March given their swollen locked pipelines . As thousands of operations folks descend on Ellie's co...
Tue, Feb 23 2016, 10:30 AM
Home price gains were somewhat mixed in December with some of the S&P Case-Shiller posting larger increases than in November and others negative or un...
Wed, Feb 17 2016, 11:02 AM
To put some perspective on things, a trillion seconds is roughly 31,710 years. The Fed indicates that household housing debt is about $8.8 trillion ...
Wed, Feb 17 2016, 8:56 AM
U.S. housing starts unexpectedly fell in January likely as bad weather disrupted building projects in some parts of the country, in what could be a te...
Tue, Feb 16 2016, 10:52 AM
The mortgage industry has certainly taken its lumps in the last eight years. Things are turning around, and Jason Frazier from California's Mason McDu...
Tue, Feb 2 2016, 9:14 AM
Where
does the penalty money that the CFPB collects go? And is it correctly
disbursed? The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has some thought...
Mon, Feb 1 2016, 12:13 PM
Construction spending scrambled back into positive territory
by a tiny bit in December, gaining 0.1 percent from November's level to an
estimated ...
Mon, Feb 1 2016, 8:34 AM
February
already? Ah, Valentine's Day - remember as a kid when your classmates
would hand out a 5 word card to every classmate and you received 20...
Thu, Jan 28 2016, 10:39 AM
And we have a trifecta!
All three of the home sales indicators for December have now come in
positive, although the latest, pending sales, did so l...
