The S&P Case Shiller September 2010 report of existing home sales showed average U.S. home prices declined 1.5% from 3Q2009 to 3Q2010. This is the fourth consecutive month of weaker data, which reflects sustained foreclosure volumes, high unemployment, and the drop off in activity following the federal homebuyer tax credit expiration. While housing prices are [...]

Rates Better But Extremely Volatile Rates are better by about .125% today vs. Friday. This morning’s home price report showed a big decline and this plus ongoing worries that Portugal and Spain will soon be next to need a rescue package following Ireland and Greece have caused mortgage bonds to rally (which brings rates down)—but [...]

Josh Brown at TheReformedBroker is fascinated by and scared of the Chinese growth story for good reason. On the truly scary side, he highlights the home market paragraph below from David Leonhardt’s NYT feature on China. Post-boom U.S. Realtors take heart: you’ve (probably!) never resorted to setting up shop on the sidewalk. This reminds me [...]

BusinessInsider just posted a good roundup of Black Friday holiday shopping stats from David Bodamer, chief editor since 2006 of Retail Traffic, a retail real estate trade magazine. Below are his quick summaries of data from core reports along with links to original reports. Bodamer’s full post also has highlights from each report and some [...]

For guys who don’t know about Bonobos, it’s a men’s mail order clothing company. They started in 2007 with pants and have expanded significantly since then, but pants are their strong suit. Normally I’d never buy a pair of pants without trying them on, but Bonobos dress pants fit most people well (only needing a [...]

Rates Open Down, Preview of Trading Week During Friday’s short bond trading day, mortgage and Treasury bonds rise as investors sought safe havens from a euro zone debt crisis. 10-yr notes were 12/32 higher in price to yield 2.87%. 5-yr notes, probably a better proxy for MBS prices given the life of new-production mortgages, were [...]

One can write several volumes about how movements in the dollar impact mortgage lending, and our economy in general. The value of the dollar is widely tracked. For example, the New York Federal Reserve reported that the U.S. monetary authorities did not intervene in the foreign exchange markets during the July-September quarter. But during that [...]

The clip below from Trading Places is a reminder to all bond traders—and all mortgage loan agents whose client rate locks are subject to their whims—that they better be fast or lucky to avoid getting their ass kicked. Billie Ray Valentine is fast tongued but ultimately it’s luck that makes him a successful Duke & [...]

Stampeding shoppers woken by a ‘coked up rooster’ go nuts for post-Thanksgiving bargains. Hey, whatever helps the economy…

Holiday Bond Market Schedule: closes at 5:00 ET today, full close Thursday, and early close at 2:00 ET Friday. Most banks are closed Friday.