Fixed and ARM rates are up slightly this week on mortgage bond weakness. Factory orders came in stronger than expected today, and bonds took this as a subtle sign that the Fed may only cut 25 basis points instead of 50. They’ve already cut 175 basis points in the past 4 months, and it typically [...]

There’s a term called “common sense underwriting” in the mortgage industry. It means that lenders should only approve loans that make sense from a risk standpoint. If a borrower is more risky, they need to compensate lenders for this risk by providing more proof of their ability to pay. If a borrower is less risky, [...]

Fixed and ARM rates open this week down by .125%, following a recession warning former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan made this morning. His warning was vague and called for the economic slowdown to come later in the year, but it was enough to give us a rate drop. The key focus for this week will [...]

Fixed rates are even this week and ARMs are up about .125%, due mostly to a bond market selloff late last week. When bonds prices drop during a selloff, bond yields (rates) rise and so do the mortgage rates that are pegged to those yields. This week is full of consumer, manufacturing and housing data [...]

Rates open even this week despite a barrage of news and data last week including a Presidential speech, a new Fed Chairman, the 14th Fed rate hike in 19 months, and a slew of big economic reports. It was a volatile week as predicted and rates were higher as of Friday, but concerns about America’s [...]

Welcome to part two of our 2006 mortgage rate outlook. Last month, we gave you a primer for understanding how rate markets work and how we formulate our predictions. This month, we will discuss how Alan Greenspan’s successor Ben Bernanke may impact rate markets, summarize Wall Street rate estimates, and make our own rate predictions [...]

As expected, rates open this week only slightly higher. This is a huge week for rates, beginning Tuesday with the year’s first and Alan Greenspan’s last Fed meeting, where we can expect the overnight Fed Funds Rate to go from 4.25% to 4.5%. This would put Fed Funds and the 10-yr Treasury bond yield at [...]

There was no MarketWeek last week because it was a holiday-shortened trading week and rates were relatively flat – as they’ve been for much of January. Next Tuesday is the year’s first and Alan Greenspan’s last Fed meeting, where we can expect a .25% increase in the overnight Fed Funds Rate. This will cause a [...]

Welcome to the new year … a time when people on main street pull up their blogs and start typing up resolutions; and a time when people on Wall Street pull out their darts and start aiming at market charts.

In the past three weeks, fixed and ARM rates are up about .375%. Last week, the yield on the 10-year note (a critical benchmark for fixed mortgages and intermediate-term ARMs) was up 0.19% to hit 4.60%, which is just shy of the 4.69% high of 2005 which came on March 23. We may see more [...]