[Editors Note: Rob Chrisman is on a cycling vacation this week so he's asked some guest writers to step in on DailyBasis. Today are online lending pioneers Owen Raun & Michael Hillman.] Internet Lending Begins Just a little over fifteen years ago, with the publication of Statement of Policy 1996-1 in The Federal Register, Nick [...]

What Economic Stats Are Doing To Rates Are we heading for lower rates, or higher rates? Certainly there is no inflationary pressure, although GDP for the fourth quarter (generally thought of as “old news”) was revised slightly higher, and was the strongest quarter of economic growth in more than six years. But Existing Home Sales [...]

Consumer Confusion Over Loan Disclosures One loan agent wrote and said, “This week we sat down with a borrower that is doing an FHA loan. The seller is paying all of the closing costs and as usual the borrower is financing the upfront MIP. Essentially the borrower is coming in with their 3.5% down payment. [...]

Housing Markets After Government Help Ends There is no one that will disagree with the statement that the mortgage markets benefited from government intervention last year. And practically everyone believes that, given the significant challenges housing is facing, the government will stay focused and do whatever it takes to support the market. For this reason, [...]

The big news yesterday, were the minutes from the mid-December Fed meeting (with the usual 3 week lag). You can see The Basis Point’s full summary here. In short, The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) still sees a modest recovery this year, e.g., one that will bring only a “slow improvement” in the nation’s severe [...]

Treasury’s Unlimited Fannie/Freddie Backing Regardless of whether or not it is good or bad for our industry, or the debate about the timing of the announcement, on Christmas Eve the U.S. Treasury agreed to provide Fannie & Freddie unlimited capital as needed over the next three years. It is an effort to reassure the investors [...]

There are some very witty and clever folks out there. (The level of my wit is at about, “A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, ‘Why the long face?’” And my clever rating maxed out after I finished the ‘Pick a Peck of Puzzles’ book that I ordered from Scholastic Books in 6th [...]

Rates Up On Better Economic News, Lighter Volume What the heck happened to rates yesterday? Rates are back to October levels, the yield on the 10-yr Treasury went up above 3.60% (a technical support level), and the yield curve continued to steepen since overnight and short-term rates are still near 0%. (And many feel a [...]

Economic/Market News Roundup The big mid-day news yesterday was the Fed’s announcement. They are leaving overnight rates unchanged, as expected, but the markets were more interested in the verbiage of the statement. “Economic activity has continued to pick up and that the deterioration in the labor market is abating. The housing sector has shown some [...]

During a recent password audit, it was found that a blonde was using the following password: MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofy. When asked why such a big password, she said that it had to be at least eight characters long. The use of passwords and computers has certainly become an integral part of the mortgage business, and the flow [...]