Shelia Bair, who chaired the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from 2006 to 2011, said that while post-crisis reforms may have overregulated banks, the current deregulatory swing could undermine important protections and lead to another banking crisis.

Regulators’ decision to lift a seven-year-old cap on the size of the megabank’s balance sheet will produce benefits over the long haul, but it won’t result in any sudden gains, according to CFO Michael Santomassimo.

Cara Petersen, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s top enforcement official, said the Trump administration has “no intention to enforce the law in any meaningful way.”

A former senior accountant at CrossCountry Mortgage claims she was let go from her job three years prior because of her age.

While lenders have come out with more products for the spring season, rate lock data finds buyers still hesitant to act because of high mortgage rates.

Although bonds are experiencing a small amount of volatility this morning, it isn’t consequential in the bigger picture.  Quick-but-modest weakness at 10:15am ET has essentially taken MBS back to unchanged levels.  10yr yields rose 2bps and are still almost 1bp lower. In the absence of relevant econ data, it falls to the Treasury auction and trade-related headlines to inform any bigger-picture momentum. As always, there’s a slightly better than random possibility of bond market weakness in the hours leading up to a Treasury auction.

“Why is Ireland so expensive? House prices are always Dublin’.” Those days are temporarily over in the United States, and the pendulum is quickly swinging to more inventory and price cuts in many places and price points. (If you’re wondering where your client can pick up an average home for cheap: Most Affordable U.S. Cities to Buy a Home for $300k or less.) Of all the major metro markets, Phoenix boasted the greatest number of listings with price cuts, at 31.3%, up more than 7 percentage points from the same period last year amid rising inventory. (The typical home in Phoenix costs $525,000, representing a drop of more than 3% from May 2024.) Here in Tampa, citizens saw the second-biggest share of discounted listings, at just below 30%. The median list price in the Sunshine State market stood at $417,500, having shed 1.6% compared with the same time last year. Coming in at No. 3, Denver had 29.4% of local home sellers slash prices on their properties last month. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s are presented by Flyhomes, the leading wholesale lender for Buy Before You Sell solutions. Whether your borrowers run into DTI issues, need to unlock home equity for down payment, make a stronger, cash-like offer, or even move potentially with no cash out of pocket, Flyhomes provides a full suite of financial products to help them move forward, before selling their current home. Hear an interview with LoanLogics’ Roby Robertson on the proliferation of the non-QM mortgage market, examining its key growth drivers, borrower trends, technological advancements, and how lenders are navigating risk and compliance amid shifting economic conditions.)

It was a fairly boring day on what has turned out to be a fairly boring week so far for mortgage rates.  After Friday’s larger spike, we’ve seen a microscopic recovery on each of the past 2 days. In terms of specific index levels, this equates to a 0.04% drop in the top tier 30yr fixed rate for the average lender.  This is roughly one third of the minimum increment that separates typical mortgage rate offerings.  In other words, it isn’t a huge move by any means.  Tomorrow brings the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI)–an economic report that has occasionally resulted in huge changes in mortgage rates. As a key measurement of inflation, CPI has been critically important at times when the market sought clarity on potential shifts in the inflation narrative. At present, however, the market is waiting a number of months before drawing any firm conclusions on inflation due to tariffs and trade deals that have yet to be finalized.  Even then, it will take a few months for those policy changes to flow through to the data. None of the above means that CPI is a complete dud.  The market can certainly still react, but the bar for true drama is higher than normal.  In other words, CPI would need to come in much higher or lower than forecast to have a big impact on rates.

No Drama Today. How About Tomorrow?

After a slightly bumpy start for reasons that remain unknown, the bond market settled into an uneventful sideways grind that lasted through the 3pm CME close. Both MBS and Treasuries were effectively unchanged and the latter didn’t give a second thought to a fairly weak 3yr Treasury auction. Trade headlines were less than meaty, but talks between the US and China are now said to potentially move into a 3rd day. That means tomorrow’s calendar will be shared between trade-related headlines, a 10yr Treasury auction (more relevant than the 3yr) and CPI data. As far as this week is concerned, this is as action-packed as we’ve seen the calendar, although that’s not saying too much given prevailing sentiment toward inflation data.  Specifically, the market cares more about how it looks several months from now.  It’s not that it can’t have an impact, but it would likely be dulled by the caveats.

Market Movement Recap

09:35 AM Modestly stronger overnight and little-changed so far.  MBS up 1 tick (0.03) and 10yr down 2.1bps at 4.454

01:08 PM No reaction to 3yr auction.  MBS down 1 tick (0.03) and 10yr unchanged at 4.474

03:09 PM Stocks rise on trade talk comments, but bonds mostly holding.  10yr unchanged at 4.474 and MBS down 1 tick (0.03).

A consent order issued by Washington against mortgage brokerage Xpert Home Lending accused the firm of violating the state’s consumer protection law.