Fri, Feb 28 2014, 9:42 AM
It
has been quite a week, visiting mortgage and banking folks in
California, Kansas, and now Texas. There are a lot of good, experienced
personn...
Fri, Feb 28 2014, 2:48 PM
Mortgage rates rose slightly today
ending a strong 3-day move lower. The weakness followed this morning's
economic data, but the bond markets th...
Thu, Feb 27 2014, 10:59 AM
Hope
springs eternal, right? As the residential lending industry wraps up a
couple rough months tomorrow, everyone is hoping for a more robust Mar...
Thu, Feb 27 2014, 10:13 AM
Institutional investors appear to be
losing interest in purchasing foreclosed properties for rentals in the face of
rising property prices and int...
Wed, Feb 26 2014, 11:29 AM
Buyers seem to have ignored the unusually
stormy weather that affected a lot of the country in January, trooping through
snow and ice to boost new...
Wed, Feb 26 2014, 11:01 AM
"You
know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type." You also
know you're old if you think "vendor management" consists of making sure...
Wed, Feb 26 2014, 8:00 AM
Today's calendar is less busy overall, compared to Tuesday, but offers a good mix of data and events . The only significant economic report of the d...
Wed, Feb 26 2014, 4:37 PM
Mortgage rates built on yesterday's strength
and continued lower today. After lenders released rate sheet
improvements in the afternoon, the av...
Wed, Feb 26 2014, 1:47 PM
The index tracking pending home sales in California jumped
22.9 percent in January to 84.8 from 68.9 in December. This was the first increase in t...
Tue, Feb 25 2014, 11:40 AM
The S&P Case-Shiller National home
price index and the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Home Price Index (HPI),
both issued on Tuesday, diverged sh...
Tue, Feb 25 2014, 4:28 PM
Mortgage rates fell noticeably
today, after being pushed up against the highest levels in nearly a
month yesterday. In that sense, the positivi...
Tue, Feb 25 2014, 1:18 PM
The growth in the average size of a new
home paused briefly at the beginning of the recession as Americans retrenched
in a lot of ways, but times ha...
Mon, Feb 24 2014, 10:32 AM
Loans
have become harder to do, and underwriters that I have spoken to keep
telling me that every deal is different. How many scenarios are ther...
Fri, Feb 21 2014, 10:44 AM
Tongues are wagging
about Wells Fargo' s extending credit to borrowers with lower credit
scores (600 FICOs) and thus, on the surface, perceive hi...
Tue, Feb 18 2014, 10:50 AM
The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB)
provided a number of explanations for a record drop in the NAHB/Wells Fargo
Housing Market Index (...
Tue, Feb 18 2014, 10:46 AM
"Any
idea how much Realtors make?" I don't know, and asking someone their
income isn't always the wisest of moves, especially on a first date. But...
Tue, Feb 18 2014, 2:49 PM
Using
an Olympic theme of " Will Housing Take Gold ", Freddie Mac's economists said
today that, while they had expected housing 'to come out of the ...
Mon, Feb 17 2014, 6:10 PM
Underwriters
will soon be entering that netherworld where they want 2013 tax
returns , but borrowers just don't have them yet. With that in mind,...
Thu, Feb 13 2014, 10:26 AM
The January spurt in applications for
new home purchases does not surprise Mike Fratantoni, chief economists for the
Mortgage Bankers Association....
Tue, Feb 11 2014, 10:52 AM
Home
price movement was mixed across metropolitan areas (MSAs) in the fourth quarter
of 2013 the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said today....
Mon, Feb 10 2014, 12:03 PM
The Obama Administration's January Housing
Scorecard, issued jointly by the Departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) notes th...
Mon, Feb 3 2014, 12:23 PM
Black Knight Financial Services said
today that the rate for mortgage delinquencies of 30 days or more, which does
not include loans in foreclosure,...
Mon, Feb 3 2014, 9:14 AM
I have decided that I am ready, mentally and physically, to win $1 billion - and it is out there for the taking. Quicken
Loans is offering a $1 bi...
Fri, Jan 31 2014, 12:51 PM
"The familiar saying that housing brings
the economy out of recessions did not hold true this time around," according to
David Crowe, Chief Economis...
Thu, Jan 30 2014, 10:53 AM
Abnormal weather was partially
blamed by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) for a substantial drop in
its December Pending Home Sales Ind...
Thu, Jan 30 2014, 10:02 AM
The industry is changing. The first half of 2013 is a distant, fond
memory for residential lenders. Subprime, non-prime - what's the diff? Business...
Thu, Jan 30 2014, 3:04 PM
Mortgage rates inched higher
today after hitting the lowest levels of the year yesterday. Trading
in the secondary mortgage markets was far cal...
Mon, Jan 27 2014, 11:29 AM
"Rob, can our investors, vendors, Realtor clients, warehouse banks, and so on, influence our hiring practices?" My kneejerk answer is that in this co...
Mon, Jan 27 2014, 4:22 PM
2:20PM :
ALERT ISSUED:
MBS Hits Lows; Negative Reprice Risk Increasing
The Fannie Mae 4.0 coupon has just reached the lo...
Mon, Jan 27 2014, 2:03 PM
December new home sales slipped 7.0 percent from revised
November figures the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development ...
Fri, Jan 24 2014, 12:18 PM
Pending home sales in California
plummeted in December, falling 25.2 percent because of what the California
Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) called...
Fri, Jan 24 2014, 10:29 AM
Just like the industry counted down to QM, now we can count down to
Girl Scout Cookie Season! We have about 16 days - but there is a lot
about the...
Thu, Jan 23 2014, 11:51 AM
December existing home sales edged up 1.0 percent to a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.87 million from 4.82 million in
November and
were 0.6 ...
Thu, Jan 23 2014, 10:56 AM
All is not bleak in residential lending. Note that yesterday
the MBA reported applications rose 4.7% last week versus +11.9% the
previous week. ...
Thu, Jan 23 2014, 9:59 AM
Sales of distressed properties made up a
larger share of home sales in 2013 than in 2012 RealtyTrac said today. Short sales and sales of bank-owne...
Tue, Jan 21 2014, 11:59 AM
Sales in 2013 were 5.9 percent below
sales in 2012 the California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) has announced,
and December sales also were do...
Tue, Jan 21 2014, 10:04 AM
How 'bout that Chinese housing market? New
home sales last year exceeded $1 trillion for the first time as
property prices in cities the governm...
Thu, Jan 16 2014, 12:44 PM
The strong growth in the home remodeling
market which began in the second quarter of 2013 will continue through the
first half of 2014 according t...
Thu, Jan 16 2014, 10:47 AM
Applications for the purchase of newly
construction homes were down again in December, declining 11 percent from
November's levels. November sale...
Thu, Jan 16 2014, 3:14 PM
The housing market turned the corner in 2012 Freddie
Mac's economists said today, and the recovery was fully underway in 2013. But despite the posit...
Tue, Jan 7 2014, 11:01 AM
Standard and Poor's Ratings Direct
Service has made some projections for the coming year. In addition to numerical forecasts for the
economy as a w...
Fri, Jan 3 2014, 12:07 PM
Last
Saturday I mentioned a misspelling in a mortgage document ("...MERS holds
leugal title..."). It turns out that it is not a MERS or Fannie iss...
Tue, Dec 31 2013, 11:39 AM
Thanks to FAMC
for sponsoring the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl . It was
some great publicity for FAMC and the industry. And this is...
Mon, Dec 30 2013, 10:22 AM
Pending home sales technically rose slightly in November, but only after a negative downward revision to October's Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) ...
Mon, Dec 30 2013, 9:51 AM
Bloomberg reports Blackstone has purchased 41,000 homes across the US in the past 2 years to become the largest single family landlord in the countr...
Mon, Dec 30 2013, 9:00 AM
Last
week was brutally slow, punctuated by an early close on Tuesday, the
Christmas holiday on Wednesday and a general absence of volume and
vol...
Mon, Dec 30 2013, 4:06 PM
Mortgage rates continued lower to begin the week after pulling back just slightly from 3-month highs on Friday. Activity continues to be subdu...
Thu, Dec 26 2013, 10:27 AM
Echoing
what lock desks are seeing, and once again causing some lenders and
Realtors to take a fresh look at overhead, the MBA Mortgage Applicatio...
Tue, Dec 24 2013, 10:20 AM
New Single Family Home Sales stood at a seasonally adjust annual rate of 464,000 in November
according to estimates released today by The U.S. Cens...
Mon, Dec 23 2013, 10:04 AM
Before
we delve into the agency, lender, and investor news, here is some
holiday cheer....maybe. On December 9th, the Federal Reserve released its...
