Category: Mortgage News Daily

Posted To: MBS CommentaryBond markets have a habit of getting progressively more quiet heading into Thanksgiving. It’s not the kind of thing you should bank on from a strategy standpoint (because there are exceptions), but you shouldn’t be surprised when it happens. And it happened in grand fashion this week with 10yr yields walking out the door at 3.065% every day for the past 4 days! When bonds are this determined to stay sideways, economic data that might otherwise have a bigger impact, instead goes unnoticed . That was the case with today’s Durable Goods which was relatively awful. Not only did this month’s data miss the mark by much more than expected, last month’s numbers were also revised noticeably weaker. There was a token reaction at first, but bonds soon were right back to the modestly…(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 rates pulled back slightly during the week ended November 16, but that did little to move mortgage applications higher. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index, a measure of overall application volume, continued to trend down, dipping 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis compared to the week ended November 9. The weeks results do not include an adjustment to account for the Veterans’ Day holiday. On an unadjusted basis, the Index was down 3.0 percent. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index shored up the overall index, rising 3.0 percent from the previous week, the first increase in that index in a month. The unadjusted index lagged 1 percent from the previous week and is down 5 percent from the same week in 2017. The Refinance Index continues to decline…(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 NewsWireFannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research Group (ESR) upped their projection for economic growth slightly, to 3.1 percent this year , but say housing will probably have little to do with it. The first estimate for the third quarter GDP came in at an annualized 3.5 percent, off a bit from 4.2 percent in the second quarter. Consumer and government spending and a building up in private inventories contributed to growth while business fixed investment was soft, residential fixed investment was down for the third straight quarter and the trade deficit widened. The ESR, in its November Economic Developments, says they expect solid gains in employment and wages to continue, but growth will slow to 2.3 percent next year due to further increases in short-term interest rates and the diminishing effects…(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 PressDo you think non-QM is going to “save your bacon?” After a non-exhaustive survey, it appears that non-QM, aka non-Agency, aka expanded credit, is running at about 3% of overall residential volume. If we do $1.5 trillion this year, my HP-12C tells me 3% equates to $45 billion. Let’s round up and say that’s $4 billion a month (a billion a week across the industry) across over 1,000 lenders (another guess of how many offer it). That averages out to $4 million per lender per month, but less for non-depository lenders when you factor out what credit unions and big banks are putting in their portfolios. Yes, averages are misleading, and yes, more and more lenders are offering the option to their MLOs, but still… For perspective, and yes, “expanded credit”…(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 CommentaryDespite a fairly perfect bounce yesterday, the trend-lines acting as floors in stocks and bonds have given way overnight, even if only in somewhat underwhelming fashion. For instance, compared the 3.06 line in the sand, 10yr yields began the day at 3.04 and are already up a bit from there. The S&P is only 20-30 points below its supportive line (not a big move for the S&P these days). Nonetheless, a break is a break! The biggest question is whether or not we should read much into this considering my typical effort to convince you that Thanksgiving week market movement should be taken with a grain of salt. In fact, I do think we CAN read something into it. Granted, there’s no way to confirm a definitive , big-picture shift. Absent a much sharper sell-off in stocks, I think bonds will…(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 NewsWireOctober was another mixed but largely mediocre month for residential construction . Permits were lower both on a monthly and an annual basis, while housing starts improved marginally, but only for the month. Completions also lagged earlier numbers. The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said that permits were issued at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,263,000 units, down 0.6 percent from the September rate of 1,270,000. The September number was revised up from the original estimate of 1,224,000. Permits in October were down 6.0 percent from the October 2017 rate of 1,343,000 units. The permitting number did come in higher than predictions of analysts polled by Econoday. They had estimated in the range of 1,224,000 to 1,285,000 with a consensus of 1,260,000…(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 managed to maintain their lowest levels in more than a month yet again today. All this despite modest losses in underlying bond markets (the stuff that’s primarily responsible for most mortgage rate movement). Apart from bond markets, lenders’ individual pricing strategies also come into play. This becomes a bigger deal than normal during holiday weeks. In general, lenders try to set rates at levels less likely to require tweaking during Thanksgiving week. That could help explain the absence of change despite the bond market losses. That said, we could also simply be looking at another case of timing, where the bond market losses happened late enough in the day that the average mortgage lender was better served to adjust tomorrow morning’s rate sheets as opposed to going to 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: MBS CommentaryWe’ve had a pretty good run recently where bond yields have been willing to at least move in the same direction at the same time during sharper stock sell-offs. No luck on that front today however. Stocks sold-off in moderately sharp fashion, and bond yields spent most of that time moving higher instead of lower. This can mean a couple things, but one of the most likely is that bond buyers have found a limit as to how far they’re going to chase a stock sell-off unless that sell-off gets a whole lot worse. The less onerous possibility is that this is Thanksgiving week and we shouldn’t read too much into typical tradeflow patterns because everything could look completely different in the coming weeks. Finally, for those who would like to maintain a purely positive outlook, I’d…(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 PressHere are some tech developments as we seem to be moving closer to machines running our lives, or a loan being approved instantly by reading a fingerprint or retina. No, this isn’t a story from the Onion: British companies are planning to microchip personnel in order to boost security and stop them accessing sensitive areas. Biohax , a Swedish company that provides human chip implants…is in talks with a number of UK legal and financial firms to implant staff with the devices. One prospective client…is a major financial services firm with “hundreds of thousands of employees.” Around the world, Google Home users no longer need another voice assistant to communicate with GE products. And, of course, there is continued concern that Facebook, Google, Twitter, and 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: MND NewsWireFreddie Mac has announced a new collaboration with a handful of rural non-profits to expand sweat equity opportunities to homeowners in several rural and underserved regions. Potential homebuyers in selected areas will be able “to leverage their construction skills to cover down payment and closing costs when purchasing a home.” The company said the expansion of sweat equity parameters of its Home Possible program, part of its “Duty to Serve” mandate, is designed to support the renovation of aging homes and provides borrowers with an additional form of down payment instead of cash. There is no limit on the amount of sweat equity that can be applied toward a down payment as long the labor is completed in a skillful manner to support the appraised value-and is certified by an appraiser. “More…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.