Products, Services, and Software for Brokers and Lenders “Great News! LendingPros has Pipeline Accelerator Specials for March, check them out. Plus, we’re excited to celebrate joining the ARIVE platform and have combined our March and ARIVE specials for UP TO 100 BPS OFF NON-QM for loans locked from 3/10 – 3/20, 2026! Our Live on ARIVE Specials include: 25 BPS Price Improvement on all Non-QM, including Select, 12.5 BPS Price Improvement on ALL Conventional, Government and Jumbo, including Select (excludes Streamlines and IRRRLs). March Specials for loans locked 3/1 – 3/31, 2026 include: Up to 75 BPS on Non-QM with Select or 25 BPS without, Prime Specials include 37.5 BPS on Non-Select VA IRRRLs and FHA Streamlines, 12.5 BPS Special on Select VA IRRRLs and FHA Streamlines and Closed-End Second Specials with LLPA Improvements and 25 BPS Price Improvement. Contact your LendingPros AE for details!” Solutions for High DTI. When DTI looks high on paper, experienced brokers look to Castor Financial. Castor specializes in simplifying non-QM by serving as the ultimate solution leader for DTI issues. Castor’s Income Stacking with its Prime PLUS program allows you to combine multiple streams—W2, Bank Statements or P&L, and Asset Depletion—to qualify borrowers. The Prime PLUS program’s asset depletion features are the most aggressive in the industry: divide eligible assets by only 36, with no minimum asset value required. Join Castor for a conversation with Danny Flucke, co-founder of US Tax Certs on March 18th. They’ll be focusing on how to remove friction for self-employed borrowers. Bring your toughest questions: there’s a free giveaway for the most challenging scenario! Register today. On March 23rd, tune in to the Chrisman Podcast as Castor President Brooks Champagne joins Robbie for a deep dive into Castor’s unique income stacking qualification.

With no massive escalation in Iran over the weekend, oil prices trickled only modestly higher during Asian trading hours and began to recover during European hours. Early domestic trading kept the friendly trend intact with some help from Trump comments that suggested a limited timeline for the war. That said, the rally was more of a linear trend this morning and less of a volatile reaction to any individual newswire. Econ data is in the back seat to geopolitical events. The same will generally be true for Wednesday’s Fed announcement, although volatility is at least possible thanks to the dot plot and press conference (rate cut = 0% chance).

NOTE: you will never see a true 0% chance in terms of probability implied by futures contracts due to the structure of that market, but 99% = 100% and 1% = 0% for all practical purposes. 

A White House executive order issued Friday afternoon directing regulators to ease Dodd-Frank compliance burdens comes as a bipartisan housing bill advances on Capitol Hill.

A federal judge wrote in an opinion that a “mountain of evidence” suggests the subpoenas were an effort to push Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates or resign.

Borrower equity fell $78.8 billion, or 0.5%, year over year in Q4, according to Cotality’s Home Equity Report. That’s an average decrease of $8,500.

Lennar’s first fiscal quarter earnings were down by more than half after three years of persistent trials which are testing consumer confidence and sentiment.

Federal bank enforcement actions have dropped sharply since the start of the second Trump administration, but experts’ views vary about whether less enforcement will result in a buildup of risk in the financial system.

Just a Bit More Selling to End The Week

Nothing much new happened in the bond market today and that’s not great because the status quo has been for rising energy prices to push bond yields higher (and stocks lower). The short end of the curve actually improved, but that says more about end-of-week position squaring than any new development.  All told, it was the least painful day of the week despite ending at the highest yields since Feb 4. Next week brings a Fed announcement with zero chance of a cut, but still perhaps some interesting commentary on how the Fed will sort inflation implications versus the economic impact.

Econ Data / Events

Core Retail Sales (Jan)

0% vs 0.5% f’cast, 0.6% prev

Core PCE (m/m) (Jan)

0.4% vs 0.4% f’cast, 0.4% prev

GDP Q4

0.7% vs 1.4% f’cast, 4.4% prev

USA JOLTS Job Openings (Jan)

6.946M vs 6.70M f’cast, 6.542M prev

Market Movement Recap

08:33 AM Sideways to slightly stronger and a modestly positive reaction to the 8:30am data. MBS up an eighths and 10yr down 1.34bps at 4.252

11:47 AM MBS down an eighth of a point and 10yr up 1.3bps at 4.278

01:21 PM flattening out at weakest levels.  MBS still down an eighth and 10yr up 1.9bps at 4.284

March hasn’t been a great month for mortgage rates and the past 3 days have been particularly bad. During that time, our daily rate index went from 6.09% on Tuesday to 6.41% today–the highest since September 4th, 2025.  While that’s certainly not the fastest jump we’ve seen, it’s the worst 3-day stretch since early April, 2025. Mortgage rates are driven primarily by movement in the bond market. Like several other asset classes, bonds have not been happy about the Iran war. This is counterintuitive for those who expect bonds to serve as a safe haven in times of uncertainty, but when war has a direct impact on inflation expectations, it’s more than enough to offset any of the safe haven benefit that might otherwise be seen. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Mortgage application activity continued to move higher last week, though the pace slowed considerably as financial markets turned volatile and mortgage rates moved back up from their recent lows. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported an increase of 3.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending March 6. This week it was purchase demand doing the heavy lifting. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 7.8% from one week earlier and was 11% higher than the same week one year ago. MBA noted that purchase activity continues to track ahead of last year’s pace as improving inventory levels support more transactions. Refinance activity was largely flat by comparison. The Refinance Index edged just 0.5% higher from the previous week but still remained 81% higher than the same week one year ago. According to MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni, markets were unsettled by geopolitical developments during the week, pushing longer-term interest rates higher. The average 30-year conforming mortgage rate rose back above 6% after briefly dipping below that threshold in recent weeks. The composition of activity shifted slightly away from refinances. The refinance share of total applications decreased to 57.8% from 59.8% the prior week, while ARM share increased to 8.9% . FHA share rose to 17.1% , VA share declined to 16.1% , and USDA share remained unchanged at 0.4% .