Mortgage Resources

Things are quickly getting interesting for mortgage rates, and by 'interesting,' I mean potentially alarming.  Everything's relative though, so it should be said right up front that the average mortgage rate is still only a hop and a skip from the all-time lows seen...

There's no shortage of bad news when it comes to the economy and the housing market. But that's no surprise considering the circumstances.  The sheer size and speed of the economic contraction makes it easy to worry about what the future will look like.  Has...

Before coronavirus, the average 30yr fixed mortgage rate was almost always 1.6% to 2.0% higher than 10yr Treasury yields.  When bond volatility was extreme (especially when Treasury yields were dropping quickly), that gap could be wider, but it was never even close to...

Investors buy and sell groups of mortgages that are pooled together in mortgage-backed bonds.  The price an investor is willing to pay for a mortgage bond is the primary factor in determining mortgage rates.  As demand for these bonds increases, rates fall (all other...

One of the most critical features of the modern mortgage market is the fact that mortgage investors can count on getting repaid even if the homeowner isn't making payments.  The mortgage servicer is the first line of defense, but it's the agencies (Fannie, Freddie,...

While some aspects of the housing/mortgage market have stabilized over the past few weeks, we're still waiting for some important guidance about the path ahead. The last few newsletters are worth revisiting, but here's a recap: Lockdowns = unprecedented joblessness...

The last few newsletters paint an incredibly interesting and volatile picture for the mortgage market.  Just as the industry was coming to terms with unprecedented market volatility due to coronavirus, the details of the CARES Act (the coronavirus...