Mortgage Rates

The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) says its Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) in April represents a sixth consecutive monthly decline. The Index, based on signed contracts to purchase existing homes, slid 3.9 percent from March to a 99.3 reading. Both new and existing home sales also experienced significant drops… Read more »

Today's weekly mortgage application survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) was fairly unsurprising in that applications declined, but at a slightly slower pace compared to recent weeks.  The moderation in the pace makes sense for a few reasons.  First off, refi applications are near their historical lower boundary. Secondly,… Read more »

The housing market has been keeping its head down, keeping calm, and carrying on in the face of the biggest rate spike since the 1980s.  The ability to ignore higher interest rates is nothing new for home sales.  In fact, sometimes we see almost no reaction in sales numbers when… Read more »

The regular monthly release of the New Residential Construction report from the Census Bureau is typically fairly dry.  To be fair, this month's update is no exception outside the housing nerd community.  But even amid the seemingly soporific data, we can find some interesting themes. First off, there's the fact… Read more »

Mortgage application activity, which had been on the rebound this month, suffered its largest loss since mid-February during the week ended May 13. Applications for both refinancing and home purchase took double digit hits. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume,… Read more »

Homebuilder confidence may still be higher than almost any time before the pandemic, but it's now lower than any time since.  The post-pandemic lows arrived abruptly with today's release of the Housing Market Index from Wells Fargo and the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB).  The month-over-month decline was the largest… Read more »

The volume of commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations jumped 72 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to a year earlier. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said lenders reported solid increases in all categories of that lending with hotel properties leading the way at 359 percent. While multifamily… Read more »

Mortgage application volume continued its recovery last week driven by a second strong increase in purchasing activity. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index, a measure of that volume, gained a seasonally adjusted 2.0 percent and increased 3.0 percent on an unadjusted basis from one week earlier. The… Read more »

Black Knight says the steep ascent of mortgage rates, the 30-year conforming jumped 63 basis points in April, was matched by a sharp drop in rate lock activity. Overall volumes were down 20 percent from March, driven by a 50 percent decline in rate/term refinance activity. Cash-out refinancing fared little… Read more »

Consumers opinion about the wisdom of buying a home went underwater in April 2021 and continues to sink. Fannie May says the question about whether it is a good or bad time to buy on its April 2022 National Housing Survey elicited positive responses from only 19 percent of respondents… Read more »