Last week’s focus for war-related headlines involved various attempts to hone in on just how close we were to a confirmed preliminary peace deal. The results were predictable with bonds moving to their lowest yields in weeks. The shoe is very much on the other foot to start the new week with headlines saying Iran is pulling out of peace talks until the Israel/Lebanon fighting ends. In addition, the IRGC is said to be taking control of diplomacy and threatening to re-block the strait. With that, 10yr yields jumped back up near the highest levels in over a week and MBS dropped a quick 3/8ths of a point.

While M&A continues (the latest example being Berkshire Hathaway buying homebuilder Taylor Morrison for $8.5 billion!), I find myself in San Juan Capistrano at the Insellerate Experience Summit but keeping an eye out for returning swallows. Lenders are keeping an eye out for loans: Although lenders generally had a good April and May, pipelines for June fundings and beyond appear to be down significantly. Insellerate’s Summit is focused on AI and tech. Mortgage has spent decades layering technology onto a system that still costs too much, moves too slowly, and frustrates nearly everyone involved, says Figure CEO Michael Tannenbaum. In an exclusive Q&A for Chrisman Commentary, he explains why he believes most mortgage technology has failed to solve the industry’s core problems, how Figure is trying to rebuild parts of housing finance from the infrastructure level up, and why Wall Street increasingly views the company less like a lender and more like a financial network. The conversation also touches on AI hype, blockchain skepticism, the psychology of running a newly public company, and why mortgage may be entering its most important transition since the rise of securitization itself. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Experian and the Experian Verify Hub. The platform brings manual submissions in-house and consolidates post-submission activities into a single environment, aiming to provide more streamlined access, faster insights, and a more cohesive user experience. Today’s has an interview with Movement Mortgage’s COO Lyra Waggoner on breaking into mortgage banking, what it actually takes to run a lender day-to-day, and thinking differently about building careers, culture, and long-term success.)

Following last week’s relatively strong move to the lowest levels since May 14th, mortgage rates bounced slightly higher to start the news week. The move followed a clear shift in the Iran war news cycle with morning headlines citing Iranian officials saying the peace negotiation were effectively tabled as long as hostilities remained between Israel and Lebanon. As a refresher, the Iran war is bad for rates primarily due to the actual and implied impact on inflation due to higher fuel costs. Bonds dictate rates and bonds hate inflation. There was an immediate and moderately sharp reaction in both oil prices and bonds right when this morning’s news came out. Fortunately, the damage was fairly mild for mortgage rates with the average lender moving up 0.04% to 6.60% for a top tier 30yr fixed scenario. This is still 0.10% lower than the most recent high of 5.70% seen on May 19th.

The FHA published a request for information in the Federal Register Friday, looking for stakeholder comment on how to improve and modernize property standards.

The new unit, renamed XedaLink, will serve some of Xactus’ direct competitors in the consumer reporting agencies space through a different platform.

Panorama Mortgage Group’s channels each had a different name, and SimplyPMG reflects a new emphasis on straightforwardness, said Hector Amendola, president.

The total delinquency rate rose 0.2 percentage points annually in March, with the share of loans 90 days late rising out of the range they were in since 2024.

Some international investors, who represent roughly 20% of Ginnie’s market, are gravitating to real estate mortgage investment conduit securities.

While there are still a few hours left in the trading day, it’s a near certainty that this week will end with mortgage rates at meaningfully lower levels compared to last Friday. Today is only adding modestly to that trend, but that makes it the 8th straight business day where rates have either held steady or moved lower. On that note, it’s possibly worth considering that these sorts of winning streaks have definite life spans. We’ve certainly seen stretches of more than 10 business days without any upward movement in rates, but they’re very rare. Even then, if the streak were to end on Monday or Tuesday, it may only be a temporary blip before more improvement. The bigger-picture issue remains the state of the Iran war. If it officially ends, rates likely have more room to improve. If hostilities re-escalate, rates could move back up into the recently higher range. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]

Markets Were Skeptical of Mid-Day Peace Headlines and That Was a Good Instinct

A few hours into the trading session, newswires came out that seemed to offer the best hopes of a peace deal yet. Specifically, it said that Trump was in the situation room to make a final determination on the peace deal and that issues required for the infamous one page memo had already been agreed upon. Markets were surprisingly cautious about reading too much into that, although it briefly took yields to their lowest levels of the week. By the end of the day, we learned that no decision had been made and negotiations weren’t any farther along than already assumed based on the week’s earlier “close to signing the memo” news. Bonds faded back toward opening levels to end the day roughly unchanged. Next week brings more headline-watching as well as the month’s biggest slate of domestic econ data.

Econ Data / Events

Wholesale Inventories

0.5 vs 0.8 f’cast, 1.3 prev

Chicago PMI

62.7 vs 50.5 f’cast

Market Movement Recap

08:33 AM Fairly flat overnight and little-changed to start. MBS up 2 ticks (.06) and 10yr unchanged at 4.445

10:57 AM Gaining ground after Trump “final decision pending” headlines. MBS up 3 ticks (.09) and 10yr down 1bp at 4.436

02:24 PM Fairly flat. MBS up an eighth and 10yr down half a bp at 4.438