Rates Jump a Quarter Point Instantly After Key Inflation Report; Now Back to 14-Year Highs
Mortgage rates were already in the vicinity of the highest levels in 14 years. With large day-to-day swings being extremely common these days, we were only ever one bad day away from making it back to those highs. Yesterday was one of those days! The culprit was at least well known and well understood, both before […]
Things Are About to Get Even More Interesting For Rates
It’s certainly already been an interesting year for financial markets–especially for housing and interest rates. But most of what’s happened over the past 8 months could be thought of as the more predictable phase of the post-pandemic market cycle. It’s what happens next that’ll be more interesting. How could anyone say that the last 8 […]
Mortgage App Volume Declines, But Jobs Data Offers Silver Lining
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says the pace of mortgage applications slowed for a fourth consecutive time during the week ended September 2. MBA’s seasonally adjusted Market Composite Index, a measure of application volume, decreased 0.8 percent heading into the long Labor Day holiday weekend. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2 percent compared to the […]
Rates Blast Back Up Toward Long Term Highs
As I discussed last week, there is unprecedented volatility in mortgage rates at the moment. It’s not that we’re seeing record setting swings from day to day. Rather, it’s the consistency with which we’re seeing exceptionally large swings. Yesterday kept that trend very much alive with another substantial jump following Friday’s substantial drop. I would not […]
Unprecedented Rate Volatility as Markets Ponder Next Big Move
It’s a tremendously important and volatile time for the market and especially for interest rates. The biggest inflation surge in decades pushed rates to their highest levels in 14 years by mid-June. Since then, there are signs that things have leveled off, but no compelling evidence for a reversal. The Federal Reserve (or just “the […]
Rates End August at Highs
The last day of August was also the worst day for rates in August. In fact, it was the worse than any of July as well and not too terribly far from the 14-year highs seen in June. The average lender is only about a quarter of a percent to 0.375% away from the levels […]
Last Week: “Housing Recession.” This Week: “At Or Close To The Bottom”
In last Thursday’s Existing Home Sales press release, the NAR’s chief economist said “we’re witnessing a housing recession in terms of declining home sales and home building.” Less than a week later, Wednesday’s Pending Home Sales release contains quite a different remark: “in terms of the current housing cycle, we may be at or close […]
Mortgage Rates Quickly Approaching 6%
Right off the bat, it’s worth mentioning that many mortgage quotes are already over 6% for a variety of reasons. But when it comes to the “going rate” quoted in the news or on mortgage/housing sites, we’re typically dealing with some form of “best case scenario.” Those rates were in the low 5’s at the […]
Mortgage Applications Drying Up Rapidly as Rates Rise, Economy Slows
Mortgage application volume declined again last week. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of that volume, decreased 2.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ended August 12, giving back its tiny gains over the previous two weeks. On an unadjusted basis, the Index lost 3 percent. The Refinance […]
Lowest Builder Confidence Since 2014
August 15, 2022 What a difference 4 months make! In April, the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) recorded a Housing Market Index (aka “builder confidence”) of 77.0. While that was off the recent peak, it was still higher than anything else before the pandemic going all the way back to 1998, and the 2nd […]