evan@evanhitch.com

The average top-tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate rose 0.08% last Friday after the jobs report came in much stronger than expected. Today added another 0.02% of upward movement. Today’s level of 6.68% is the 3rd highest of the past 9 months. Unlike Friday, there were no big-ticket economic reports driving volatility in rate markets. The […]

Remember when talk of a “re-IPO” of Freddie and Fannie dominated residential lending news? That has certainly quieted, Pulte’s attentions are diverted, and you can certainly buy stock in them now: share prices for both are down about 30 percent this year so maybe they’re a bargain. For those new to the biz, the FHFA

Things got a bit worse before they got better over the weekend. 10yr yields were as high as 4.58% in overnight trading, but are now roughly unchanged in early domestic trading. Oil prices mirrored the same movement overnight, but haven’t recovered as much as bond yields. In fact, bonds arguably led the move lower with a

At Least It Didn’t Get Much Worse After The Initial Rout If you had to find something reassuring to say about the bond market today, it would be that there wasn’t much selling after 9am ET. Unfortunately, there was a whole lot of selling in the prior 30 minutes. Try as they might, analysts couldn’t

Over the past three months, mortgage rate movement has been driven primarily by developments in the Iran war. It’s not that war, itself, is a consideration, but rather the implications for fuel prices and inflation. Bonds care deeply about inflation and interest rates are based directly on bonds. When inflation isn’t raging (or at the

Mortgage applications eased again last week even as borrowing costs moved lower, suggesting that modest rate relief was not enough to bring borrowers back in force. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a 2.5% decrease in total application volume on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending May 29. The decline was led by

Today we’re going to learn about the facts of life. Trivia-loving basketball facts’ fans know that this is the first time the NY Knicks have led in the finals since the night of OJ’s White Bronco car chase. Homeowner’s insurance has become the “you can’t avoid it and you can’t afford it” fact of life

Buzz has been growing around the labor market for the past several months, but today’s jobs report went the extra mile to make it official. The job market is officially re-accelerating. Actually, the better claim would be that the jobs market is simply attempting to level off after a very long post-covid normalization. Most of

Modest Gains Maintained After Intraday Slippage Slippage is a bit less severe than leakage. Neither of them will turn a green day red, but they both erode morning gains. Today’s gains primarily followed a pre-market comment from Trump who said the US was in the middle of final negotiations to end the Iran war. Bonds

After hitting long-term highs on May 19th, mortgage rates dropped somewhat quickly by May 26th. Ever since then, they’ve been moving back and forth in a very narrow range. Today’s movement happened to be the good kind with the average lender cutting top-tier 30yr fixed rates by 0.03%. As always, keep in mind that mortgages