Category: Mortgage News Daily

Posted To: MBS CommentaryToday brought two events that should theoretically have helped bonds: a much weaker producer level inflation reading (2.4 vs 2.7 forecast for core PPI) this morning, and a fairly strong 10yr Treasury auction in the afternoon. But neither had much of an impact by the end of the day. To be fair, bonds did manage to gain a small amount of ground, but those gains were intact before the friendly events crossed the wires. This isn’t an out-and-out mystery, however. The PPI data is rarely a huge market mover in the first place. With the more important CPI coming up tomorrow (among other things), it’s no surprise to see today’s PPI offering little inspiration for would-be bond buyers. The 10yr auction suffers from a mostly similar fate . It is a positive anecdote for bonds, to be sure,…(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 applications for home purchases managed to move higher for the second straight time last week in spite of the usual lag in activity that accompanies a holiday shortened work week. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index, a measure of application volume, declined 1.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ended September 17. On an unadjusted basis the index was down by 13 percent, reflecting the Labor Day holiday on Monday. The weeks numbers were further adjusted to account for the holiday. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index gained 1.0 percent compared to the week ended August 31 although it declined by 11 percent unadjusted. The unadjusted index was 4.0 percent higher than during the same week in 2017. The Refinance Index dropped by another…(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 always reminded that nature bats last. Every lender that I know of bases their disaster policies directly from FEMA’s declarations or from other companies that base their policies from FEMA. Lenders are reacting – see below. (My cat Myrtle is very concerned that the current forecast has Hurricane Florence targeting landfall at Myrtle Beach.) In North Carolina, there are 9 million pigs being raised on 2,300 Carolina hog farms, and those animals produce 10 billion pounds of wet animal waste a year, which is stored in open lagoons. The North Carolina Pork Council said the lagoons can handle 25 inches of rain without failing. Portions of North Carolina are forecasted to get 40 inches of rain. Events Caliber Home Loans, Inc. is hosting not one, but TWO webinars today on its…(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 NewsWireIn the last half of 2017 the three credit bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, agreed to change the way they handle collection accounts. These accounts represent a wide variety of debt – unpaid gym memberships, unpaid traffic tickets, delinquent rent, even unreturned library books. However unpaid medical bills account for about 52 percent of those debts. Another 23 percent are utility bills, and about 6 percent are debts that have defaulted and been sold to third party collection firms. About 40 percent of consumers with a credit report have had a debt in collections on their record at some point. The New York Federal Reserve’s Liberty Street Economics group says that collection accounts become more prevalent during the Great Recession , but since there has been a declining trend showing…(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 remain unchanged today despite the fact that underlying bond markets were stronger. Stronger bond markets are typically associated with lower rates, but in today’s case, markets had some catching up to do. At issue is the timing of yesterday’s weakness. Bond markets had lost ground throughout the day (something that can sometimes result in lenders changing rates in the middle of the day). A few lenders indeed pulled the trigger on such “mid-day price changes,” but the average lender did not. Simply put, that left the average lender with a little bit of weakness to price into today’s rates. The moderate amount of improvement in underlying bond markets was just enough to offset that implied weakness, thus leaving the average lender unchanged. The stakes remain high as…(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 lenders appear to be holding credit standards stable despite increasing competition and declining demand and profit expectations. Fannie Mae’s third quarter Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey found an increasing number of respondents reporting a net negative profit margin outlook, the eighth consecutive quarter they have done so. The net negative was 20 percent compared to 17 percent in the second quarter and 12 percent in the third quarter of 2017, however it was lower than in either the fourth quarter of last year or the first quarter of this year when the net negatives were 22 percent and 31 percent respectively. The low expectations for profitability come amid further erosion of mortgage demand. Regardless of the loan type, GSE-eligible, non-GSE eligible, and government, the net…(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 said its Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) moved lower in August due to a decline in its jumbo loan component index. The composite MCAI decreased 0.3 percent to 183.5. A decline in the MCAI indicates that lending standards are tightening, while increases in the index are indicative of loosening credit. “Overall credit availability saw a slight decrease in August, for the first time in four months, as the jumbo index retreated from its record high in July. Strong month-over-month increases in the jumbo index reversed because of a reduction in the number of jumbo programs. The decline in jumbo credit availability was offset partially by an increase in the conforming index, which increased over the month due to the addition of low down payment programs…(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 fairly steady this morning, keeping them in line with the highest levels since early August. As the day progressed, underlying bond markets weakened. This implies higher rates tomorrow or, for some lenders, a late day change to today’s rate sheet offerings. The changes aren’t severe, but at recent highs, every little bit hurts. If the next 5 days are anything like the past 5 days, we’d be looking at the highest rates since 2011! In other words, we may not be moving too much, but the outright levels continue to be unpleasant. There were no specific motivations in financial markets to account for today’s bond market weakness. That said, there is anxiety about events coming up in the rest of the week. These include economic reports (like the inflation data tomorrow and Thursday…(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 CommentaryWith no intent of drawing any parallels to Hurricane Florence, bond markets are battening down their hatches in advance of a perfect storm of data and events. These include economic reports in the coming days (PPI, CPI, Retail Sales), a healthy dose of supply (Treasury auctions and corporate debt issuance), and the European Central Bank announcement. All of the above must be digested and dealt with in the first full week of September–a month that often marks a shift from the trading tone seen during the summer. If all of the above events conspire against bonds, the net effect is quite negative–easily enough to push 10yr yields up and over 3%. It’s with that anxiety in mind that bonds continued their September sell-off today. We’ll need to work our way through those events before we…(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 NewsWire“Rob, although the initial commotion about Amazon entering the mortgage biz has died down, my management team believes it is still a threat. We have heard, however, that plenty of resi companies use Amazon’s servers to host their sites. Is this true?” “Plenty” is a little vague. I don’t know how many, or exactly who, or the IT implications, but here are a couple of quick, easy to find references: Blend , Roostify , and CloudVirga . To the best of my very limited IT knowledge, Amazon Web Services is entirely separate from Amazon’s other ventures. Conventional Conforming Changes “ACIS is Freddie Mac’s programmatic CRT offering for the global (re)insurance industry. It accesses institution-based capital to support the mortgage credit market…(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it.