National home prices grew monthly and annually in October, but considerably less than last year, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

The professionals can’t originate loans in their local cities for various stretches, following a federal judge’s ruling granting most of the lender’s wishes.

New Jersey-based OceanFirst Financial slid in its planned $579 million acquisition of Flushing Financial just before the end of the year. The private equity firm Warburg Pincus is also participating in the transaction.

The new regulation, which passed overwhelmingly in the state legislature, would allow insurers to remove wildfire protections from standard homeowners policies.

Three U.S. senators opened an inquiry into insurance ratings firm Demotech and whether its assessments may be exposing taxpayers to growing risks tied to climate-driven insurer failures.

Modest Recovery From Morning Weakness

Bonds were slightly weaker this morning in a move that looked like it might have been significant when compared to yesterday’s narrow range.  But in a just-barely-wider context, today’s volatility was just as inconsequential as almost any of the days in December so far.  With that, we’ll continue to count down to next week’s bigger-ticket data and more robust trader participation. 

Econ Data / Events

Case Shiller Home Prices-20 y/y (Oct)

1.3% vs 1.1% f’cast, 1.4% prev

CaseShiller 20 mm nsa (Oct)

-0.3% vs — f’cast, -0.5% prev

FHFA Home Price Index m/m (Oct)

0.4% vs 0.1% f’cast, 0% prev

FHFA Home Prices y/y (Oct)

1.7% vs — f’cast, 1.7% prev

Chicago PMI (Dec)

43.5 vs 39.5 f’cast, 36.3 prev

Market Movement Recap

10:10 AM Moderately weaker overnight and sideways so far. MBS down an eighth and 10yr up 2.7bps at 4.135

12:02 PM bouncing back a bit. MBS down only 1 tick (.03) and 10yr up 1.2bps at 4.119

03:14 PM Still mostly sideways. MBS down 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr up 2.1bps at 4.128.

Mortgage rates continue operating in an excruciatingly narrow range near their lowest levels of the past few years. Yesterday was the 6th best day of 2025. Today is tied for 7th place after rates moved 0.01% higher on average. While the underlying bond market is fully open today, it’s a slow time of year in terms of volume and volatility. Bigger movement becomes more likely by the end of next week thanks to the return of important economic reports and stronger trader participation after holiday absences. 

Loan originators are acutely aware of demographics (“know your borrower,” right?). Naming generations is relatively recent, and then-People Magazine Editor Landon Y. Jones coined the term Baby Boomer. (He died last year.) The oldest Baby Boomers turn 80 in 2026. By the end of this decade, all baby boomers will be 65 and older, and the number of people 80 and over will double in 20 years. Do you have loan products for them? Without any immigration, the U.S. population will start shrinking in five years. VP JD Vance is among those pushing for an increase in fertility. Vance has suggested giving parents more voting power, according to their numbers of children, or giving low-interest loans to married parents and tax exemptions to women who have four children or more. (Recall that last year JD Vance recommended giving votes to all children in this country but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.) All of these trends and statements do, or could, impact every residential lender. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s are sponsored by the Refi Recapture Engine from LO Autopilot. Did you know lenders lose 80 percent of refi recapture? The Refi Recapture Engine triples recapture volume and delivers refi-ready borrowers to your LOs on a silver platter. They’re so confident in the ROI they let you try before you buy. Contact them for a demo. Hear an interview with consultant Jeremy Potter on when companies should use external labor, why LinkedIn is an intellectual isolation ward, and final thoughts from the year that was in mortgage.)

If we turn up the magnification on our market-watching microscopes, it may seem like something important happened in the bond market overnight. 10yr yields were up by more than 3bps at one point and MBS fell just over an eighth of a point. These may seem like big swings relative to yesterday’s narrow range, but this is actually a rather tame expression of year-end volatility. To understand a bit more about month/quarter/year-end trading motivations, check out our primer on the topic. 4 trading days ago, 10yr yields hit the top of the prevailing range at 4.20.  Yesterday, they were close enough to the lower end of that range (4.10). Nothing that occurs inside these boundaries is remotely significant–just noise.

The additional research Secretary Scott Turner acknowledged would be required should include a cost-benefit analysis, mortgage professionals suggested.