Household borrowing from mortgages and other loans hit a record, outpacing inflation, a study shows.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found forbearance hurdles for borrowers included endgame questions, and also noted a high share of multilingual users.

However, a significant minority, more than one-in-10, stated although they want to buy, they will never be able to afford to do so, Insurify found.

Ficklin has been the CFPB’s only fair lending director since 2011, establishing the office under Elizabeth Warren and pushing fair lending enforcement beyond mortgages into other financial products such as credit cards.

The latest headcount reduction impacted another office previously belonging to Computershare Mortgage Services, a servicing company Newrez acquired in May.

Changing The Narrative to Fit The Market Movement

Often, if not most of the time, one can observe the core ingredients of any given trading day and reasonably predict the nature of the bond market’s reaction.  At the very least, there’s a certain basic level of causality that tends to play by the rules more often than not.  For instance, if a report like ISM Manufacturing comes in weaker across the board, it’s reasonable to expect bond yields to fall, all other things being equal.  To be fair, that actually happened today, but only for about 70 seconds before yields began selling off again, ultimately hitting the highest levels in more than a month.  Such a counterintuitive move sends analysts scurrying for narratives to fit the market movement.  In this case, all we have are the now familiar month-end/new-month trading patterns and “politics.” The latter is a can of worms–not because of the charged nature of the topic, but because of all the ifs, thens, assumptions, and yeah buts required to to make the narrative fit. 

Econ Data / Events

ISM Manufacturing PMI

48.5 vs 49.1 f’cast, 48.7 prev

Market Movement Recap

09:06 AM Just barely weaker overnight with additional selling at 8:20am CME open.  MBS down an eighth and 10yr up 4.9bps at 4.446.

10:51 AM Additional weakness after ISM data, but not necessarily because of it.  MBS down a quarter point and 10yr up 8bps at 4.477

02:28 PM weakest levels now with MBS down just over a quarter point on the day and 10yr yields up 9bps at 4.487

Mortgage rates continued their frustrating and somewhat perplexing move higher today, thus bringing the average lender close to the highest levels since the end of May.  Rising rates are always frustrating for those the housing/mortgage markets and prospective borrowers, but an ebb and flow is a way of life.  In other words, it’s perfectly normal to see good and bad days for rates. Less normal is the occasional emergence of counterintuitive rate movement.  In other words, we are usually able to tie any given drop or surge in rates to one or more root causes that have had similar impacts in the past.   This time around, however, the economic data has been suggesting DOWNWARD pressure on rates over the past two days.  That’s notable for two reasons: economic data has been a reliable source of guidance and, more importantly, rates have experienced anything but downward pressure over the past two days! There are a few ways to account for the paradox, but at this point, most conversations include some speculation about the political impact on rates after last week’s presidential debate.  Connecting the dots from those conclusions to the market movement is a rather complex task and it relies on several assumptions that can’t be predicted with a high degree of certainty.  As such, we’ll dig deeper in the event the narrative continues causing problems for rates.  For now, just be aware that it may be a source of counterintuitive pressure, but one that should still be trumped by the major upcoming economic reports.

Friday’s trading session was marked by a surprisingly weak reaction to economic data that should have helped bonds.  In fact, it did at first, but things deteriorated as the day progressed.  We were left to consider some combination of politics and month/quarter-end trading motivations.  Now at the start of the new week/month/quarter, the same theme is in play.  Weak ISM data should have helped bonds, but we’re instead moving to the weakest levels in several weeks.  This time around, it’s harder to place all the blame on the calendar-based tradeflows.  In other words, bonds are getting nervous about a GOP sweep because whether it’s red or blue, a one party sweep has bad implications for Treasury supply.

Do you know anyone in a “Situationship?” You know, a romantic or sexual relationship that is not considered to be formal or established? People in many varying degrees of relationships buy homes together, and using multiple incomes has become arguably more important in recent years. The math is not hard. The “average” person has a student loan, or a car loan, or credit card debt, or all three. Throw in interest rates around 7 percent, homeowner’s insurance of possibly thousands of dollars, utilities, property taxes, utilities, maintenance, mortgage insurance… you get the picture. Home affordability has deteriorated for several months in a row due to all of those reasons, not the least of which is mortgage rates, sidelining many prospective buyers from entering the housing market. Even the Fed noted it in its Beige Book, saying that “tight credit standards and high interest rates continued to constrain lending growth. Housing demand rose modestly, and single-family construction increased, though there were reports of rising rates impacting sales activity.” (Today’s podcast is found here and this week’s is sponsored by Bundle, the attorney-prepared legal documents company that is dedicated to the real estate, mortgage, and title industries. Fuel your operations and execution of documents from deeds to subordinations to assignments, and everything you need for any order, in one bundled price; receive 20 percent off using the code “Chrisman” at checkout. Hear an interview with Bundle’s Courtney and Frank Dec on attorney prepared documents germane to the mortgage industry.)

Investors laying claim to 19.3% of Voxtur Analytics common stock had attempted to add new nominees, but instead the company affirmed a downsized board.