Real Estate

Mortgage application activity continued to move higher last week, though the pace slowed considerably as financial markets turned volatile and mortgage rates moved back up from their recent lows. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported an increase of 3.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending March 6. This week it was purchase […]

March hasn’t been a great month for mortgage rates and the past 3 days have been particularly bad. During that time, our daily rate index went from 6.09% on Tuesday to 6.41% today–the highest since September 4th, 2025.  While that’s certainly not the fastest jump we’ve seen, it’s the worst 3-day stretch since early April,

Just a Bit More Selling to End The Week Nothing much new happened in the bond market today and that’s not great because the status quo has been for rising energy prices to push bond yields higher (and stocks lower). The short end of the curve actually improved, but that says more about end-of-week position

There’s a high bar for econ data to have any impact on bonds these days and that’s especially true of inflation reports like this morning’s PCE. Thankfully, no one needs to make a case for PCE having an impact, but the small amount of help for bonds came from a big miss in core retail

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Mortgage rates are driven by the bond market. Although bonds only experienced moderate, steady weakness throughout the day, mortgage rates lurched higher by an amount typically seen when the market is reacting to big, breaking news.  But there wasn’t any of that sort of news on tap today–just downbeat updates that reinforced a longer timeline

War Protest: Bond Market Edition There’s no quicker way to classify the movement we’ve seen over the past 2 weeks. The market is actively protesting the war in Iran–not because it’s a sentient being that cares about violence, but rather because the implications for inflation, economic uncertainty, and Treasury issuance on not great. There weren’t

Products, Services, and Software for Brokers and Lenders Home equity lending is having a moment. The challenge for many lenders? The process behind it still looks like 2015: manual workflows, vendor emails, and too much operational juggling. FirstClose is hosting a 30-minute webinar on March 19 at 1 PM CT that examines how lenders are

The bond market doesn’t look like it can catch a break as long as war persists in Iran. If it’s not oil, it’s fertilizer, nat gas, military spending, or a host of other inflationary knock-on effects that bode ill for the fixed income sector. Yes, the implied economic fallout would help offset the inflationary impulses,

Mortgage rates moved higher on Wednesday despite only a modest increase in oil prices. The latter is currently a part of any conversation about interest rates as higher energy costs have fueled inflation expectations. Higher inflation begets higher rates, all else equal. But rates take other cues, or course. One key consideration is that of