Mortgage Industry News and Insights
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Mortgage Rates Spike
The bond market went a little crazy last week, and mortgage rates followed. By Monday of this week most lenders were quoting 4.0% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM). The market calmed a bit midweek, and by Thursday Freddie Mac reported a slight easing to 3.94 %. The speed of the increase was close to…
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Demand for Higher Loan Limits
The Employment Situation report for October was a solid one again, with 161,000 new jobs, less than analysts’ consensus of 178, but in the mid-range of their estimates. The unemployment rate fell 0.1% to 4.9%, which Econoday says some consider full employment. Probably the sweetest data nugget however was average hourly earnings. They rose “an outsized”…
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Rare and Endangered
We have talked a lot about the dismal post-housing crash stats on homeownership. They hit the lowest level in Census Bureau history in the second quarter of this year, 63.1%. Well, surprise. They didn’t get any better in the third quarter. While the overall rate did rise to 63.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis, the…
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Behind The Headlines
The headline was hopeful, “New home sales rise 3.1% in September,” but you know what they say about devils and details. New home sales were indeed up, but only because the August sales turned out to be even worse than first reported. Instead of the annual rate of 609,000 first announced, they were revised to…
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Perhaps They’re Back
Existing home sales rebounded after a two-month slump but the National Association of Realtors was even more excited by a second stat–the share of first-time homebuyers rose 3 percentage points to 34%, the highest since July 2012. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said, “The market fundamentals–primarily consistent job gains and affordable mortgage rates–are there…
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Close Call
The public always gets two doses of information about the monthly meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). As the meeting ends there is a press release and a statement from Fed Chair Janet Yellen then a few weeks later the release of the “Beige Book” with the official minutes. The immediate news out…
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A Respectable Report
Given the spectacular showing of new home sales in July–up 12.4% and topping an annual rate of 600,000 for the first time since the crash–no one really expected August sales to continue the breakneck pace. And they didn’t. But last week’s report from the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development was…
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Rates Rise
Why wait until the last minute? Several members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors sounded more amenable to higher interest rates late last week so the markets apparently decided to get ahead of the game. While the next decision point on a Fed Funds rate hike won’t be until next week, mortgage and bond rates…
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Jobs Return, Builders Don’t
We know by now that the housing inventory is the root of all evil, blamed for home sales that aren’t quite where they should be, the steady erosion of the homeownership rate, rising home prices, and rising rents. One factor underlying the current tight supply of homes is the lack of single-family construction, especially in…