Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch

It is the first Friday of the month and that brings us the official government report on the labor market: The Employment Situation Report, the most highly anticipated montly dataset available to the market. This release provides four headline measures on the health of the jobs sector. Nonfarm Payrolls: totals the number of jobs that were added to or cut from employer payrolls in the prior month. Consensus Forecast: -100,000 vs. -131,000 in July (Private payrolls increased 71,000 in July and +41,000 expected today) Unemployment Rate: the percentage of working-age, mentally able-Americans who are jobless. Consensus Forecast: 9.6% of the labor force vs. 9.5% last month Average Hourly Earnings: the average amount of earnings per hour of labor performed. Consensus Forecast: +0.1% vs. +0.2% last…(read more)

Posted To: MBS Commentary

NFP has come and gone, let’s see where things stand…. The October delivery FNCL 4.0 is -0-09 at 102-15. In the chart below I called attention to a few technical inflection points. The ascending trend channel that helped mortgage rates hit new lows on Wednesday has broken down and FNCL 4.0s have made their way back into the range that moderated price action for the majority of August. The falling knife found support and bounced higher directly in the middle of that range. 10s flagged lower for the entire month of August (all summer really) and are now flagging higher. The 2.625% coupon bearing 10 year TSY note is off its session price lows (98-24) at 99-07 yielding 2.715% (+8.8bps). 10s are the worst spot on the curve followed by 7s (+8.6bps) and the long bond (+7.6bps). Volume was heavy into…(read more)

Posted To: MND NewsWire

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), conservator of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the Enterprises) has established its final housing goals for the Enterprises in 2010-2011. FHFA is required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) to set such goals for targeted segments of the mortgage market The new rules establish three goals for single-family, owner-occupied home purchases; one for low-income families, another for very low-income families, and a third for families living in geographical areas with lower-income populations, areas with high concentrations of minority residents, or federal declared disaster areas. The goal for disaster areas contains a sub-goal to ensure that the needs of lower-income and minority areas are addressed. A goal has also been established for…(read more)

Posted To: Pipeline Press

If there’s one thing that an investor will never let any originator off the buyback hook for, it’s fraud . Not only that, but the penalties can go far beyond merely buying back the loan, and saying’ “My bad.” Just in the last few days, Laura-Jean Arvelo and Ronald O’Malley, a New Jersey mortgage broker and former head of the Bergen County Improvement Authority, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of preparing fraudulent mortgage applications. Both are charged with wire fraud, bank fraud and loan application fraud in order to take bogus documents and falsified applications to trick lenders into making mortgage loans and benefited from fees they received. Ryan Miller of Missouri was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison and pay $6 million in restitution for mortgage fraud…(read more)

Posted To: MBS Commentary

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION – AUGUST 2010 – BETTER THAN EXPECTED From the Release… Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (-54,000) in August, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Government employment fell, as 114,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+67,000). The number of unemployed persons (14.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.6 percent) were little changed in August. From May through August, the jobless rate remained in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 percent. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) declined by 323,000 over the month to 6.2 million . In August, 42…(read more)

Posted To: MBS Commentary

Markets are roughly flat Friday morning ahead of the widely anticipated employment report for August, which at 8:30 eastern time is set to show that jobs declined for the third straight month. Ninety minutes before the opening bell, the S&P 500 is down 0.75 to 1,089.00. The 10 year Treasury note is -0-07 at 99-25 yielding 2.65% (+2.5bps) and the October deliver FNCL 4.0 is -0-02 at 102-22. The employment report is anticipated to show that 100,000 jobs were lost last month, though the decline relates to disappearing Census jobs rather than another dip. Still, private payrolls should increase a modest 41,000, according to economists polled by Reuters, and manufacturing jobs should be up by 10,000. “Unfortunately, whatever we see privately probably gets fully offset by other public sector…(read more)

Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch

What a boring day in the markets! Stocks added to yesterday’s gains and bonds added to their losses. This pushed mortgage rates marginally higher. The best 30 year fixed mortgage rates are still in the 4.125% to 4.375% range for well-qualified consumers, but less lenders are offering rates below 4.25% today. If your lender is still willing to offer a rate below 4.25%, your closing costs are about 25bps higher today (0.25% of your loan amount). AQ’s comments from yesterday still apply… We’re not panicking over this sell off. There has been no change in our fundamental economic outlook, we see no new reason to be optimistic about a rapid recovery. What we witnessed today was a technical adjustment, an adjustment that could reverse course on Friday morning if the Employment Situation Report…(read more)

Posted To: MND NewsWire

The National Association of Realtors released the Pending Home Sales Index today. NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index measures the number of home purchase contracts that were signed in the monthly reporting period. Once “pending” sales contracts are closed, they are considered an existing home sale. Because the Pending Home Sales index tells us how many contracts were signed, it is consider a forward indicator of existing home sales. A signed contract is not counted as an existing home sale until the transaction actually closes. Excerpts from the Release… Following a sharp drop in the months immediately after expiration of the home buyer tax credit, pending home sales have modestly risen. The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator, rose 5.2 percent to 79.4 based on contracts signed…(read more)

Posted To: MND NewsWire

Community organizers, state and federal government officials, and representatives from banking, research and educations institutions are currently meeting in Washington at a REO and Vacant Properties Summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank. The two day conference is focused on examining the problems associated with vacant and abandoned property and to explore approaches to neighborhood stabilization. Governor Elizabeth Duke, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve opened the summit on Wednesday. In her remarks she introduced the types of issues that are faced by communities with high rates of foreclosure and REO and highlighted some of the lessons learned in the last few years about neighborhood stabilization strategies. She pointed out that the impact of each foreclosure goes far beyond…(read more)

Posted To: MBS Commentary

What a rough morning! It appears my hard drive no longer wants to work. I tried to reach out for help, but no one answered. Then my gf called and reminded me that today is 9.02.10. This explains why Glenn is M.I.A, he’s curled up on his couch watching re-runs of 90210! I think his favorite character is Dillon. Enjoy your day off Glenn! Oh well. I’m up and running again…… The day has not been so pleasant for originators either. Loan pricing is 2.9bps worse on average today. That doesn’t sound too bad, but take a closer look. The largest rebate reductions were applied to the note rates closest to par. These are the rates most borrowers are hoping to be quoted. There is good news though, you can still lock in a rate below 4.25%! It’s just gonna cost more at the closing table. The stock market…(read more)