Thu, Jan 7 2021, 5:40 PM
Mortgage rates moved higher today, but only a modest pace compared to yesterday (read more about yesterday's rate rout HERE ). Over the past two days,...
Wed, Jan 6 2021, 5:33 PM
Mortgage rates went to bed last night knowing they were at risk of a volatile day today. Georgia's senate race has been in focus for 2 months now beca...
Tue, Jan 5 2021, 3:53 PM
Mortgage rates got off to a slow start yesterday. It was hard to object considering that left the average lender in line with record lows. But today w...
Mon, Jan 4 2021, 4:30 PM
Mortgage rates are off to a slow start in the new year, and that's a good thing. An absence of movement means the average lender continues offering ra...
Tue, Dec 29 2020, 3:50 PM
For all practical purposes, the year is over when it comes to mortgage rate volatility. True, there is some small chance that political developments c...
Tue, Dec 22 2020, 6:54 PM
Mortgage rates hit another all-time low on Friday for most lenders. Other lenders had slightly lower rates yesterday morning. Since then however, almo...
Thu, Dec 17 2020, 5:50 PM
2020 has safely secured its place in the record books as the year of all-time lows in mortgage rates --one of them anyway. Several other years have re...
Wed, Dec 16 2020, 4:36 PM
Today marked the release of an updated policy statement from the Federal Reserve. In other words, it was Fed day! Lots can happen on Fed days--especia...
Tue, Dec 15 2020, 5:12 PM
Mortgage rates were mixed today, depending on the lender. The bond market--the driving force behind interest rate movement--was stronger yesterday. Ma...
Thu, Dec 10 2020, 4:05 PM
It's old news that 2020 is unprecedented for a lot of bad reasons, but how about a few that aren't so bad? As is often the case when anything causes m...
Wed, Dec 9 2020, 4:46 PM
While all is easily forgiven in light of all-time low rates, the pandemic made a mess of the mortgage market in many ways. Most messes have been resol...
Mon, Dec 7 2020, 4:59 PM
You might think you know mortgage rates. You might make assumptions about where they'll go and what they'll do based on past precedent. For decades, y...
Fri, Dec 4 2020, 5:53 PM
Mortgage loans ultimately "turn into" bonds and those bonds have a certain value to investors. When those values change, so do the rates offered by mo...
Thu, Dec 3 2020, 4:43 PM
Tomorrow brings the month's most important economic report: the Employment Situation, often referred to simply as "the jobs report." No other piece of...
Wed, Dec 2 2020, 4:19 PM
Although it was the focus of yesterday's discussion , the ability of the mortgage market to hold steady in the face of bond market weakness continues ...
Tue, Dec 1 2020, 4:05 PM
Like many industries, housing finance has a superficial layer that's fairly easy to understand for the average consumer. A person wants a home. They d...
Mon, Nov 30 2020, 4:43 PM
Although many mortgage lenders were technically open for business last Friday, it's a well-known unofficial holiday. Mortgage rate movement requires b...
Tue, Nov 24 2020, 4:42 PM
If you follow the MBS Commentary channel on this site, you will have already seen most of the following, but it's relevant for consumers as well. As f...
Mon, Nov 23 2020, 5:01 PM
Everything is relative when it comes to following day-to-day movements in mortgage rates . Yes, they're technically higher than they were on Friday af...
Thu, Nov 19 2020, 4:40 PM
August 4th, 2020 was the best day ever for mortgage rates . That's when we hit the lowest all-time lows we've ever seen, and none of the most prevalen...
Wed, Nov 18 2020, 5:22 PM
Mortgage rates were little-changed yesterday--a fact that was ultimately at odds with underlying market movement by the end of the day. What does that...
Tue, Nov 17 2020, 4:20 PM
Mortgage rates were little-changed today, with the average lender only microscopically better than yesterday. That means few loan seekers will notice ...
Mon, Nov 16 2020, 3:56 PM
Last week, trial results from Pfizer's covid vaccine sent shockwaves through financial markets. Stock prices and bond yields both moved decisively hig...
Thu, Nov 12 2020, 4:24 PM
Earlier in the month, mortgage rates rose somewhat abruptly as lenders got in a defensive position ahead of the election. They'd learned in 2016 just ...
Tue, Nov 10 2020, 2:37 PM
Mortgage rate movement had been very calm relatively resilient compared to the broader bond market. In other words, mortgages have been doing better t...
Mon, Nov 9 2020, 3:28 PM
Last week ultimately ended up being great for mortgage rates , but only after a somewhat abrupt increase heading into the election. On Tuesday, the av...
Thu, Nov 5 2020, 4:53 PM
Any discussion of "all-time low" mortgage rates requires careful attention to specifics. Are we talking about weekly survey numbers or actual daily nu...
Wed, Nov 4 2020, 3:53 PM
Yesterday, we discussed the fact that many mortgage lenders got defensive ahead of election night uncertainty. In the mortgage world, when lenders get...
Mon, Nov 2 2020, 3:23 PM
Mortgage rates move higher and lower all the time, but truly massive moves tend to arrive with many months (if not years) in between. The trade war in...
Fri, Oct 30 2020, 7:20 PM
The 2016 election won't soon be forgotten in the mortgage or bond markets. Many of the predictions were dead wrong when it came to how interest rates ...
Thu, Oct 29 2020, 2:54 PM
It was a bit of a bittersweet day for mortgage rates . On the one hand, it was the Fed's first day buying a new category of mortgage-backed bonds--one...
Wed, Oct 28 2020, 5:10 PM
When interest rates plummeted in response to the early realities of the pandemic back in March/April, mortgage rates did a terrible job of keeping pac...
Tue, Oct 27 2020, 4:45 PM
Mortgage rates are mostly determined by the trading levels of mortgage-backed bonds on the open market. When those bonds improve, mortgage rates move ...
Mon, Oct 26 2020, 3:47 PM
Mortgage rates were lower today for the average lender, but just how low remains a matter of great debate. To be fair, there's no active debate raging...
Fri, Oct 23 2020, 6:26 PM
Another week, another glut of news articles claiming mortgage rates are at all-time lows. While no one is intentionally trying to deceive you, the new...
Thu, Oct 22 2020, 4:56 PM
Thursdays are special days for mortgage rate aficionados--or they can be anyway. That's when the weekly mortgage rate survey from Freddie Mac is relea...
Wed, Oct 21 2020, 4:32 PM
Rates are appreciably higher than they were last week or indeed any time in past 4 weeks. That's surprising news to those laboring under misapprehensi...
Tue, Oct 20 2020, 4:41 PM
It began last week. It was subtle--so subtle as to pass largely unnoticed. But the gentle drift toward slightly higher rates has taken bigger steps so...
Mon, Oct 19 2020, 3:43 PM
For some unknown reason, there were additional articles over the weekend touting " all-time low mortgage rates." Underpinning these alleged rates is p...
Fri, Oct 16 2020, 5:03 PM
Yesterday, we discussed why rates are not actually at all-time lows. But rates are whatever they are. They're relation to previous lows doesn't really...
Thu, Oct 15 2020, 4:21 PM
Many of today's mortgage-related headlines are touting "new all-time lows," but there are significant caveats. The biggest caveat would likely be the ...
Wed, Oct 14 2020, 4:44 PM
If you're shopping for a purchase mortgage and if you'd previously received quotes from one of the slower moving lenders back in late July or early Au...
Tue, Oct 13 2020, 4:56 PM
Mortgage Rates have been exceptionally calm recently. The only major exception has been the implementation, delay, and re-implementation of a new fee ...
Fri, Oct 9 2020, 4:59 PM
The bond market, which drives interest rates, is in the habit of reacting to big developments that impact the economy and inflation. At present, bonds...
Thu, Oct 8 2020, 3:53 PM
After rising at a medium-quick pace to begin the week, the past 3 days have been much calmer by comparison for mortgage rates . Today was the best exa...
Wed, Oct 7 2020, 4:42 PM
This morning's weekly survey data from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed a nice increase in refinance applications offset by a smaller decrease ...
Tue, Oct 6 2020, 4:20 PM
After falling moderately to start the week, mortgage rates put in a calmer performance on Tuesday. As we discussed yesterday, volatility in the bond m...
Mon, Oct 5 2020, 4:14 PM
Mortgage rates have been spoiled, relatively, by an extraordinarily calm/narrow trading pattern in the bond market. That's important because the bond ...
Thu, Oct 1 2020, 5:28 PM
Mortgage rates were mixed today, depending on the lender. The underlying bond market (which dictates day to day changes in rates) has been more volati...
Wed, Sep 30 2020, 4:38 PM
Mortgage rates don't just magically appear . Lenders don't choose them arbitrarily. To sustain the pace and scope of the mortgage market in the US (an...
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