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As recently as Thursday, August 6th, the average mortgage rate headline proclaimed the lowest rates in 6 months. That wasn't true on Thursday, and it's even less true today. Were the other headlines lying? No, not intentionally. The source of the confusion is Freddie...
The Federal Reserve (aka "the Fed") released its latest policy announcement this week without making any changes to existing policies or rates. The Fed doesn't directly control mortgage rates, but Fed policies--and even the verbiage of the announcement--can have an...
This week's mortgage rates are hard to compare to last week's. There are two simple reasons for this. The first is the recent removal of the adverse market fee that artificially increased rates for refinance transactions starting late last summer (discussed in...
It was big, bad news when it came out last summer. Almost a year later, the 50 basis point "adverse market fee," which affected a majority of refinance mortgages has been eliminated! Backstory For those interested in a refresher, here is the original coverage. And...
This week brought pleasant surprises for the mortgage market as rates returned to levels not seen since February. Back in February, we were passing through the present rate range on the way UP, and there were few--if any--reasons to think we'd return to those levels...
A heat wave on the west coast got national attention this week. Despite temps close to 120°, Tuesday's home price data was even hotter with both of the big reports telling the same story. FHFA prices (nationwide) are increasing at a record pace. Case Shiller (20...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) was born of the chaos that defined the mortgage market at the end of the great financial crisis. In addition to absorbing existing regulatory agencies’ duties, its most important and unique role came as the conservator of...
The Fed released a new scheduled policy announcement this week as well as updated economic projections. Relative chaos ensued. Let's talk about why and what it means going forward. Background on Fed Funds Rate and Mortgage Rates There's a fairly...
No, this isn't one of those click-bait headlines that promise to share "one weird trick" or proclaim "you'll never believe what happened next." Well, actually, some people might have a hard time believing this one. In the interest of respecting the time of those who...