supply

The Week In Review (June 11, 2007) : What To Watch For

June 11, 2007

After a semi-calm start, last week ended terribly for mortgage rate shoppers highlighted (lowlighted?) by Thursday’s mortgage bond market crash. The drubbing Thursday was the worst day for the bond market in three years and is one of the reasons why the conforming and jumbo 30-year fixed mortgage is up 0.625% since late-April. Conforming and […]

Read the full article →

When Mortgage Rates Snowball Higher And It Becomes An Avalanche

June 8, 2007

Yesterday was the single worst day for mortgage rates in more than four years. Because so few homeowners understand how mortgage rates are determined, a day like yesterday may have little context. So, let’s try to put it in perspective. If somebody told you that the stock market crashed, you’d understand.  A stock market crash […]

Read the full article →

The Week In Review (June 4, 2007) : What To Watch For

June 4, 2007

Another week, another vicious rise in mortgage rates.  There just wasn’t enough “bad” news to reverse the market’s recent trend to the upside. There were three notable pieces of news from last week: The Fed’s May meeting minutes revealed a genuine concern that inflation is not slowing as anticipated The employment report showed that employers […]

Read the full article →

The Week In Review (April 30, 2007) : What To Watch For

April 30, 2007

Last week, a ranking Fed official delivered a “wait-and-see” speech on inflation and that roiled the mortgage markets plenty. After sitting in a tight range for Monday through Wednesday, rates exploded higher Thursday as markets abruptly changed their expectations of growth for the rest of 2007. Despite weak housing numbers, employment and consumer spending figures […]

Read the full article →

How 2007 Gas Prices Are Pacing With 2006 Gas Prices

April 20, 2007

Gas prices are entering a very similar pattern to 2006 across the United States and — while it’s bad news for motorists — it could be bad news for mortgage rate shoppers, too. Last summer, gas prices averaged more than $3.00 per gallon for three main reasons: Fear of supply reduction from the Middle East Fear […]

Read the full article →

The Domino Effect of Sub-Prime Lending on Move-Up Home Buyers

April 4, 2007

Wondering how the dramatic change in sub-prime mortgage lending will impact you? Try this stat on for size: Since 1998, 1.4 million families have used sub-prime mortgages to buy their first home. As sub-prime lending guidelines get tighter, there will be fewer first-time home buyers and that impacts every homeowner in the country. The reason […]

Read the full article →

The Week In Review (April 2, 2007) : What To Watch For

April 2, 2007

Last week, Ben Bernanke’s testimony before Congress served as a stark wake-up call that inflation is not going away so easily. Later in the week, hard data backed that up.  PCE, the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, beat expectations and pushed the year-over-year increase to 2.4%. The Fed hopes that PCE will be 2.0% by 2008 […]

Read the full article →

What Last Night’s Oil Price Spike Reveals About Market Nerves

March 28, 2007

Oil prices are down since last year overall, mostly because the political risk has been removed from pricing. Last night, though, a rumored Iranian attack on a U.S. ship in the Persian Gulf showed how quickly markets can flip if oil supply is threatened. Immediately, the political risk of tightened oil supply found its way […]

Read the full article →

The Headlines On Housing Aren’t Telling The Whole Story

March 23, 2007

As a consumer, it’s very easy to be misled by newspaper headlines.  Today provides a great example. “Sales of Existing Homes Up 3.9% For The Biggest Monthly Gains In Three Years” What was not mentioned in the headline was that total inventory rose by 5.9%, adding more supply than for which there is demand. More […]

Read the full article →

Why Nations Care What Ben Bernanke Says To The U.S. Congress

February 15, 2007

The markets continue to show their appreciation for Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony yesterday and mortgage rates are falling in response. So, why do the Chairman’s words hold such sway over global markets?  Simple.  Buying and selling U.S. dollar-denominated securities is an integral part of central banking fiscal management policies worldwide.  When the Chairman says that […]

Read the full article →

England and Europe Impact Domestic Mortgage Rates

February 8, 2007

The Bank of England and the European Central Bank left their benchmark lending rates unchanged today.  Both alluded, however, to the need for future rate increases and these policies can have a direct impact on domestic mortgage rates. When strong governments issue debt (i.e. bonds), it is “guaranteed money” and, therefore, risk-free.  When nations with […]

Read the full article →

Has “Housing Stability” Become a “Housing Rebound”?

January 26, 2007

Mortgage bonds continue their slide after yesterday’s outright hysteria. Today’s New Homes Sales showed a 4.8% jump in December to an annualized pace of 1.12 million homes.  This is about 14% higher than July’s pace and some economists are wondering if “housing stability” just turned into “housing rebound”. Home supply plummeted from 7.2 months to […]

Read the full article →

Existing Home Sales Data is Weak, But Traders Find Strength

January 25, 2007

Existing Home Sales showed weaker-than-expected numbers this morning, but that hasn’t stopped the slide in mortgage-backed securities.  This is a counter-intuitive movement so let’s take a deeper look. First, the supply of homes dropped from 7.3 months to 6.8 months.  With less supply, there is a tendency for home values to stabilize and that is […]

Read the full article →

New Homes Sales Is Less Important Than New Homes Closed

December 28, 2006

Yesterday’s New Home Sales report revealed the following signs of immense strength in the housing sector and mortgage rates are moving higher on the news. Sales registered 1.047 million versus the expectation of 1.015 million — a difference of 3.15%. Sales were revised higher by 46,000 over the past three months. Inventory levels dropped to […]

Read the full article →

Next Entries →