Category: Mortgage News Daily

Posted To: Pipeline PressWhat’s new here at the MBA’s conference in Washington DC? Plenty of secretive M&A closed-door meetings, continued talk that Ginnie is carefully eying non-bank approved Ginnie issuer’s financial situations, conjecture of MI reps’ jobs in the future if all the MI companies roll out pricing engines, and Fannie & Freddie eliminating some “pricing inefficiencies” to end cherry-picking. The FHFA (overseer of F&F) continue to focus on maintaining access to credit, reduced taxpayer risk, and the infrastructure for a single security. There’s also talk about the BofA/NACA 0% down, 4.5% program . We’re going there again? Products, Services, Books, and Events for Lenders Lendsnap, The Digital Mortgage Company™, is hosting private consultations…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: Pipeline Press“Rob, are you hearing about investors taking more of a hard line on every issue right now? In recent years they would give an extra day, or waive something, but they are not doing this right now.” Yes, I am hearing that, and that “hard line” approach impacts the primary markets as well, and LOs should set borrower expectations. The “big guys” are testing the security market right now. (See the capital markets section for an interesting review of Wells’ deal.) Remember that in recent years plenty of securitizers have lost billions in fees and settlements due to loans in securities not being what they represented and want to avoid that at all costs. You can’t blame them dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Hopefully minor issues, unlike…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: MBS CommentaryIs there potential for today to turn into a “black Friday” with catastrophic stock losses that usher in the most amazing bond rally we’ve seen in years? Sure… that could happen any time, really, depending on the underlying events driving the move. In the current case, it’s not highly likely unless we’re ready to accept the end of the current economic expansion. That would be hard to do given the current course of economic data. Rather, the big shift in stocks will be reserved for a time when we’re also seeing a big enough shift in the underlying data to cool the Fed’s rate hike aspirations. This is why people like to blame the Fed for “causing” stock sell-offs, but the fact is that it’s the data driving the Fed AND stocks. Based on the trajectory…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: MND NewsWireMortgage denial rates ebb and flow with the economy, with lenders appetite for risk, and sometimes with the pressure lenders feel to make loans. Denial rates in 2017 continued to diminish as they have done since the economy began to improve in 2013 and were the lowest in any year since at least 2004. Using data collected from lenders under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), CoreLogic estimates only about one in ten mortgage applications were denied last year. Poor credit used to be the primary reason that lenders turned borrowers away, but Yanling Mayer, writing in the CoreLogic Insights blog, says that, in the current credit cycle that has changed. The tight inventory of starter and lower-priced homes has pushed the prices of those homes up faster, impacting affordability more on that…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: Mortgage Rate WatchMortgage rates held relatively steady today, finally leveling off after two solid days of improvement driven by the week’s big stock market sell-off. Stocks and rates don’t always move in the same direction at the same time, but when stocks make a big move lower, rates tend to benefit. This week’s move lower in stocks was the 3rd largest since the financial crisis. In that light, we only saw a mere token of improvement for mortgage rates, but we’ll take what we can get considering it was the only meaningful drop in rates since August 10th. For most of the day, it looked like stocks might head back down, but they recovered in the afternoon. That put an end to the hopes of any more improvement in mortgage rates for this week. Underlying bond markets were quick to follow stocks back in the other…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: MBS CommentaryReferring to the week of bond trading as ” crazy ” is a bit of a stretch. If we bring stocks into the mix, or if we go back to last Wednesday, it’s been a crazy 7 business days (bonds were closed on Monday). As you’re well aware, stocks were in the spotlight this week and bonds couldn’t have looked much less eager to cheer them on. Granted, bonds did what they were supposed to do–eventually–by rallying in response to a gigantic stock sell-off. But the net effect is that 10yr yields can only say they ALMOST recovered HALF of the ground lost last week. The very lowest yields seen today would have been the highest in 7 years on any other week. But enough of that depressing stuff! We all know this is a rising rate environment. And we also know traders are aware of that fact…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: MND NewsWireThe Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports a drop in applications for the purchase of newly constructed homes last month. Those applications fell by 3.9 percent compared to August although they remained 8.2 percent higher than they were the previous September. The change does not reflect any seasonal adjustment. The information comes from MBA’s Builder Application Survey (BAS) which is conducted among the mortgage subsidiaries of new home builders. Based on the survey data as well as other marketing data, MBA projects that new home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 643,000 units. The seasonally adjusted annual number in August was 669,000. On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimates that there were 50,000 new home sales in September 2018, a decrease of 5.7 percent from…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: MND NewsWireWant to get that reluctant customer who has been “about to” buy a home for months a little push? If an analysis by the Urban Institute (UI) as reported in Freddie Mac’s Homeownership blog is on target, your best marketing tool might be available at the local animal shelter. Admittedly that is a bit of a stretch, but here’s the rationale. Both the 2013 and the 2017 American Housing Surveys (AHS), asked respondents “would you need help with your pets in case of a disaster?” Respondents had the option to say if they did not own a pet. The question is obviously meant for planning purposes for communities as they prepare emergency plans, but UI looked at responses from a different perspective. Freddie Mac says what UI found isn’t too surprising. Pet ownership is at its highest when the head of household…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: Pipeline PressWe’re in the middle of mortgage conference season. (Are there any apple orchards left with all the applewood smoked bacon served at breakfasts?) The MBA’s National Conference begins Saturday – yes, nearly every conference eats into the weekend – and attendees will be watching the LTV (lender to vendor) ratio. Plenty of vendors are merging or partnering, raising money, offering new products – lots of news below. And in legal news, there’s even an app that lets people sue anyone! Great – just what we need, huh? Lender Products and Services Royal Pacific Funding (RPF) is offering its broker partners more value to their borrowers. RPF will apply a credit at closing for your borrower equal to a free appraisal (up to $500) on all purchase and refinance transactions…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.

Posted To: MBS CommentaryAnything more than 20 points is a big day of selling in terms of the S&P, but that’s a small enough number to be relatively common, periodically. From there, a sell-off of more than roughly 33 points becomes much less common. By the time we’re talking about anything over 50 points, examples are limited to only a handful every year (and NONE from August 2011 through August 2015). Sell-offs of more than 80 points have occurred exactly 3 times during the recovery from the Great Recession–all of them in 2018–and yesterday was one of them. The other two 80+ point S&P sell-offs were back in February, and we can basically throw the 2nd one out as being driven by whipsaw that was part of the same sell-off (aka, stocks bounced bigly on the way down and then returned for only a bit…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.