The amount of income needed to make monthly mortgage payments are declining and approaching a key affordability benchmark, the National Association of Realtors found.
Tag Archives: mortgage fraud
CFPB sanctions Navy Federal for improper overdraft fees
The Vienna, Virginia-based credit union will pay tens of millions of dollars in penalties over what the agency said was “junk fees” charged to Navy Federal’s customers.
How soon will builders meet the nation’s inventory shortage?
The National Association of Homebuilder’s chief economist lays out a timeline for the market, and describes how new construction today compares to existing home sales.
Mortgage rates climb and more rises may be on the way
The post-election spike in the 10-year Treasury yield could translate to higher rates for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the short term.
Citizens to pair AI agents with automation to improve productivity
AI agents can help route tasks and make decisions along the way, but a human in the loop will still be needed to ensure effectiveness.
Tricky Day… Mortgage Rates Fall Significantly, But Not Because of The Fed
There’s a distinct risk that, even in the financial community, that people will look back on today’s drop in interest rates and conclude it must have something to do with the Federal Reserve’s latest policy announcement. After all the Fed did cut its policy rate by 0.25% today, and the Fed was the only big ticket event on the calendar. Unfortunately, almost all of the improvement in rates was in place well before the Fed announcement was released. This isn’t a case of financial markets moving into position for an expected outcome either. The Fed’s cut was 100% expected, and Fed Chair Powell had nothing too surprising to say (even if the delivery was memorable when he was asked if he’d resign if asked by the president). So why did bonds/rates improve so much? We have to apply the same logic to gains that we’ve applied to other election related volatility. The election mobilized a massive (and massively volatile) amount of trading positions in the bond market and beyond. We’ve seen several rate spikes that were just as bad as today’s rate drop was good. All we could do with many of those was simply take them in stride and chalk them up to the exceptional volatility and highly charged environment. Today’s friendly volatility is a constant invitee to these episodes, even if it feels like it doesn’t show up as frequently as other guests. To some extent, this morning’s Jobless Claims data may have contributed, but it doesn’t make sense to give it too much credit until other data shows similar cause for concern (continuing jobless claims are up to the highest levels in several years).
Breaking Down The Big (Mostly) Non-Fed-Related Rally
Breaking Down The Big Non-Fed-Related Rally
As intraday charts give way to daily charts in the coming weeks, it will be all too easy to look back on today’s calendar and conclude that it could only have been the Fed announcement that was capable of motivating a 10+bp rally in Treasuries and a half point gain in MBS. As we here in the past know, that rally was largely already in place ahead of the Fed announcement. We can’t chalk it up to the high continued claims number, though that may have helped. The simplest theory is that there are “dip buyers” in bonds now that the election is over. It’s not a bad one, but we could just as easily say that a glacial drift toward higher rates got ahead of itself yesterday and fell back in line with the trend today. Either way, MBS and mortgage rates have outperformed the move in Treasuries, and there’s at least a moment of hope for optimists to imagine an inflection point.
Econ Data / Events
Jobless Claims
221k vs 221k f’cast, 218k prev
Continued Claims
1892k vs 1880k f’cast, 1853k prev
Market Movement Recap
08:40 AM Slightly stronger overnight and little-changed after jobless claims data. MBS are up a quarter point and 10yr yields are down 1.6bps at 4.415
12:35 PM Additional gains all morning. MBS at best levels, up half a point. 10yr down 9bps at 4.34
02:27 PM unchanged to a hair weaker after Fed announcement. MBS up 15 ticks (.27) and 10yr down 7.6bps at 4.356
03:11 PM 2 way trading after Powell press conference, but mostly stronger. MBS up more than half a point and 10yr down 11.3bps at 4.318
‘Be nimble’: Mortgage lenders, experts mull the Trump effect
Experts anticipate a pullback in regulatory action and some potential pain for home builders but long-term interest rate impacts are a major question mark.
Guild Mortgage takes earnings hit from servicing portfolio
Value adjustments to Guild’s MSRs totaled a loss of $145.8 million, the nonbanks third quarter earnings show.
Finance of America profits from higher volume, fair market values
The company plans to increase investments in its proprietary products as well as marketing initiatives with expectations of originations growth next year.