Virginia Mortgage Loans

#ForBuyers #Infographics #FirstTimeHomeBuyers #MoveUpBuyers Facts About Closing Costs [INFOGRAPHIC]: * If you’re thinking about buying a home, be sure to plan for closing costs. * Closing costs are typically 2% to 5% of the total purchase price of a home, and they can include things like government recording costs, appraisal fees, and more. http://dlvr.it/Slmp9C http://dlvr.it/SlmpXM

* If you’re thinking about buying a home, be sure to plan for closing costs. * Closing costs are typically 2% to 5% of the total purchase price of a home, and they can include things like government recording costs, appraisal fees, and more. http://dlvr.it/SlmpGQ

Spring has arrived, and that means more and more people are getting their homes ready to sell. http://dlvr.it/SlfqKv

If you’re thinking about selling this spring, it’s time to get moving – the best week to list your house is fast approaching.  http://dlvr.it/SlXrWF

Things are always changing. No bagpipe player I saw growing up looked, or played, like this. The MBA’s forecast for 2023 volumes changed, and here’s the latest by the MBA on 2023’s originations: $1.8 trillion. Technology is always changing. No, this Commentary is not produced by ChatGPT, nor will it ever be, unlike lesser publications. But if you’re a teacher, like my daughter with her classroom full of 7th graders, or a professor, how do you know that the paper turned in by a student wasn’t produced by AI? (Speaking of which, thank you to everyone who wrote yesterday that egg-laying chickens were killed by the “flu” not “the flue”… I should have caught that.) Economic conditions are always changing as well, and yesterday’s Federal Reserve Open Market Committee change of 25 basis points higher for its targeted overnight Fed Funds rate (what banks charge one another for overnight deposits) certainly sent a statement: “Sure some banks had some issues and mismanagement that we are well aw...

If you’re thinking about buying a home, you want to know the decision will be a good one.  http://dlvr.it/SlLgfM

Existing home sales emerged, at least temporarily, out of a prolonged slump last month, and weren’t even shy about it. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said seasonally adjusted annual sales of preowned single-family houses, townhomes, condos, and cooperative apartments hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.58 million units compared to 4.0 million in January. The 14.5 percent monthly increase snapped a 12-month losing streak and was the largest one-month gain since the 22.4 percent increase in July 2020. [existinghomesdata] Single-family home sales performed even better, rising from 3.59 million units in January to 4.14 million, a 15.3 percent increase. Condo and coop sales grew by 30,000 units to 440,000. The February increases, however, fell far short of restoring sales to their levels a year earlier. Total sales remained down 22.6 percent compared to the 5.92 million unit rate in February 2022. Single-family sales were 21.4 percent and condo sales 32.3 percent lower o...

Relative to the presence of important market developments and high volatility, the current landscape for bonds is surprisingly simple.  The banking panic pushed traders into bonds--primarily shorter-term bonds--at the expense of equities.  This is a classic risk-off trade.  Without a steady stream of new sources of panic, the trade reverses.  That's what we're seeing so far this morning, but trading levels are still quite far from pre-panic levels.  The only other obvious order of business will be to get the Fed's take on how recent events reshape the rate hike narrative. To be clear, there's no major implication for tomorrow's meeting, but the outlook for the rest of the year has been going wild. http://dlvr.it/SlFJng

The way bond math works, every man, woman, and child that owns a fixed-income security issued when rates were lower is now underwater on that bond or that security. As long as they continue to collect payments on that coupon, and don’t have to sell it, fine. If they are forced to sell the security at a loss and book it, that’s a different story. When people want their money out of a bank, and the bank needs to sell securities to pay off depositors, well, we’ve seen how that plays out. Along those lines, big bank problems make the headlines, but there are plenty of smaller depository bank mergers and acquisitions going on that don’t make the headlines. And the same thing is happening with vendors and mortgage bankers & brokers. Before I forget, anyone can post a resume for free here and employers can view them for several months at a nominal charge. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by Black Knight, Inc. As a premier provider of innovative, high-performan...

Once you’ve made the decision to sell your house and have hired a real estate agent to help, they’ll ask how much access to your home you want to give potential buyers. http://dlvr.it/SlDd5Y

While there are no new bank failures in play, financial markets have traumatic memories from last Friday and last weekend.  Better safe than sorry heading into 2 days without the ability to react defensively to any significant developments in the banking world.  European shares are leading the flight to safety so far this morning and that's spilling over into Treasuries (in a good way for rates) even though US stocks are doing a much better job of holding their ground. In the chart below, notices the sharpest move and biggest retracement of yesterday's range in Germany's DAX equities index.  While it's not pictured, EU sovereign debt is following in lock step with lower yields, and that's pulling US yields lower to start the day.  US stocks are trying to rise above it all, and are actually doing an OK job so far.  If they end up acquiescing to the flight-to-safety, it would likely only help Treasuries.   http://dlvr.it/Sl36F9

Some Highlights * Today’s housing market is different than it was in 2008. * Lending standards have tightened, foreclosures have declined, home inventory is much lower, and homeowners have far more equity. http://dlvr.it/Sl2SmK

Though the housing market is no longer experiencing the frenzy of a year ago, buyers are showing their interest in purchasing a home.  http://dlvr.it/SkzPKn

The housing market has been going through shifts lately. http://dlvr.it/SksKBH

You may have seen reports in the news recently saying it’s better to rent right now than it is to own your home. But before you let that... http://dlvr.it/SkqQ3l

Despite the announcement of a Fed/Treasury/FDIC backstop for SVB and Signature Bank, financial markets are trading as if current events imply a sea change for economic momentum, inflation, and the Fed rate hike trajectory.  It's pretty much that simple.  What's not so simple is determining whether or not that trading will prove to be justified by changes in consumer behavior.  Also complicated will be the task of reacting to economic data for the month of February when the sea change wasn't even an idea until last week. http://dlvr.it/SkppG2

Where should we start the week? How about how predictions and forecasts are nearly worthless when they’re out of date one week later? How about with an old-fashioned run on a bank, eliminating any talk of another Fed rate increase. People wonder, “Where do I bank? Is it big enough? Is there enough regulation?” Lenders are making sure that their warehouse funding is not only from one bank, since nothing will shut down a faster than lack of liquidity and inability to fund loans. With the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (below, see government announcement from yesterday), here’s a great graphic of how we ended up with just four megabanks in the USA. And how did regulators not see a huge bank failure coming? Regulation is in the news, not only in banking but also in loan officer compensation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is requesting the public’s input on the economic impact of the mortgage loan originator rules on small mortgage companies. (More below.) Resid...

One of the benefits of being a homeowner is that you build equity over time.  http://dlvr.it/SkpJGr

SVB > NFP = Supermassive Bond Rally In a matter of 48 hours, Silicon Valley Bank has gone from being a company that we've never heard about or discussed to the highest profile bank failure since the Great Financial Crisis.  Such developments sound like they should be good for bonds and today was no exception.  The news certainly overshadowed today's jobs report although traders also looked willing to take that in stride (higher headline job creation offset by lower wage growth and higher unemployment). The net effect was the largest rally in 4 months and one of the 5 biggest rallies of the past decade--at least for Treasuries.  MBS underperformed for reasons discussed in today's video. Econ Data / Events Nonfarm Payrolls 311 vs 205 f'cast, 504 prev Wages 0.2 vs 0.3 f'cast, 0.3 prev Unemployment Rate 3.6 vs 3.4 f'cast, 3.4 prev Participation rate +0.1 Market Movement Recap 08:53 AM Big overnight rally, additional gains after NFP, bu...

The most notable development on jobs day has stunningly turned out to be the trading that came before the jobs report in the overnight session.  Bonds embarked on a fairly big rally, ostensibly due to Silicon Valley Bank news.  10yr yields were roughly 10 bps lower before NFP came in at 311k vs 205k f'cast.  Anyone could be forgiven for think such a number meant trouble for bonds, but bonds paradoxically rallied (with an eye on higher unemployment and lower wages). After a brief correction, the gains continued all morning, ultimately adding up to the biggest rally day since November 10th. But how much--if any--of this is due to the jobs report?  That's a tough call, but only inasmuch as deciding if we want to give the jobs report ANY credit.  It may deserve anywhere between 5-20%, but the market is clearly trading the SVB news.  One of the clearest indications of that comes from the stock market. The prevailing trend in stocks and bonds has been for both sides of the mar...

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Julie C. writes, “Did you know that every “c” in “Pacific Ocean” is pronounced differently?” As I head to Northern California, which borders the Pacific, this morning, I recalled this thought: “Sometimes you meet someone and you know from the first moment that you want to spend your whole life without them.” I am sure that people don’t feel that way about loanDepot’s Anthony Hsieh, although the LD board of directors is wary. Recall that Anthony was forced out of his position as Executive Chairman a month ago, but given that he’s the founder of the company, and still a large stockholder, he has sway and was in the news this week about “shaking up” LD’s board. (More loanDepot and other wholesaler news below… remember Impac Funding?) (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and homeownership platform that unites the people, systems, and stages of the mortgage process into one seamless, end-to-end solution that spans engagement, origina...

Thursday Was Nice, But It's All About Friday There wasn't much for the bond market to sink its teeth into on Thursday.  Traders focused on higher jobless claims numbers right out of the gate with the market reaction FAR outpacing the suggestion from the data.  The reaction also suggests an extreme level of sensitivity to Friday's jobs report.  In other words, if jobless claims is a gentle breeze of market movement potential, NFP is a hurricane.  The gentle breeze was helpful today, but all that matters in the bigger picture is whether or not the hurricane is blowing in the same direction. Econ Data / Events Jobless Claims 211 vs 195 f'cast, 190 prev Challenger Layoffs 77.77k vs 102.943k prev Market Movement Recap 08:35 AM unchanged to slightly weaker overnight, but bouncing back a bit after Jobless Claims data.  10yr and MBS currently unchanged (MBS are showing 2 ticks weaker, but they would be unchanged or better if there were liquidity) 11:17 A...

While the Federal Reserve doesn't directly dictate mortgage rates, the outlook for Fed rate hikes matters a great deal.  In the days and weeks leading up to almost every Fed announcement in the past year, the market has had a very clear sense of how quickly the Fed would be hiking as well as the general levels at which it would likely be done hiking. That had been the case for the upcoming meeting as well.  There really hadn't been any doubt that the Fed would continue to hike by 0.25% increments.  But several big ticket economic reports caused traders to rethink the outlook.  In fact, even Fed Chair Powell admitted that no decision has been made yet and things could change after the jobs report and next week's inflation data. That makes Friday's jobs report incredibly important for rate momentum in the short term.  The data will be released at 8:30am ET.  If it's much stronger than expected, mortgage rates will likely be moving quickly higher.  If it misses forecas...

I wonder if Fed Chair Jerome Powell ever hums to himself, “Everybody’s talking at me, I can’t hear a word they’re saying…” (Angelina Jolie’s father, John Voight, is alive and doing fine.) The bond market has heard him loud and clear, however. Rates are back up, and companies are wondering about if the cuts they made in the second half of 2022 are enough. Rather than reduce headcount there are other ways to lower expenses, and “A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned” is the current STRATMOR blog and discusses things other than layoffs. On a larger scale, you could have gambled the whole company and lost… One of the cryptocurrency industry's most prominent banks, Silvergate Capital Corp., announced on Wednesday its intention to shut down and voluntarily liquidate. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and homeownership platform that unites the people, systems, and stages of the mortgage process into one seamless, end-to-end solution t...

After a ho-hum and mostly sideways overnight session, bonds are starting the day with a surprisingly swift reaction to the Jobless Claims data.  While this report may seem similar to the big monthly jobs report (after all, both generate an unemployment rate), they have never been in the same league when it comes to market movement potential.  To be sure, that is still the case, but the difference now is that markets are clearly expressing at least some interest in the weekly Claims data in terms of volume and volatility--something we've only seen a handful of times, ever. We can further confirm the nature of the market's reaction by considering stocks as well.  In fact, both before and after the Claims data, stocks and bonds traded in their "Fed Friend or Foe" pattern.  This happens when data suggests a friendlier Fed and both sides of the market rally or when data suggests a more hawkish Fed and both sides of the market sell-off.  In other words, the equally notice...

Are you planning to buy a home this spring? http://dlvr.it/SkcSkw

The world "resilient" has frequently been repeated in the commentary over the past two weeks, and today is already shaping up to be worth adding to the list.  Despite higher ADP employment, higher job openings (via JOLTS data), anxiety over Powell's 2nd day of testimony, and a looming 10yr Treasury auction, bonds have remained in positive territory in early trading.  It would be hard to label this as anything other than resilient.  That said, resilience speaks more to an absence of additional weakness than to a significant counterattack.  The latter would require downbeat data (particularly NFP and CPI). http://dlvr.it/SkZGdk

Last week my son asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I replied, “I didn’t know he could!” The weather here in Palm Springs, California is much different than that of Anchorage, and yesterday’s Commentary’s mention of the fabled Iditarod prompted Fairway Independent’s Susan Hawkins to send, “I was there when I lived in Anchorage! Here are some photos.” Looks cold, which is to be expected. What is not expected is when a lender or vendor makes headlines. Huh? CoreLogic in the headlines again? Yup. What is also in the headlines is the move in interest rates: The bond market price selloff came after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned in his testimony that the "ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated." So, any loan originator, or lender, praying for lower rates soon is likely to be disappointed. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week is sponsored by SimpleNexus, an nCino company and homeownership platform that unites the people, sy...

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 7.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis compared to the previous week. On an unadjusted basis, the Index was up 9 percent. The Refinance Index rose 9 percent from the previous week and was 76 percent lower than the same week in 2022.  The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 28.9 percent of total applications from 28.7 percent. [refiappschart] The Purchase Index was 7 percent higher than the prior week on a seasonally adjusted basis and up 9 percent before adjustment. Purchase volume has declined 42 percent on an annual basis. [purchaseappschart] “Mortgage rates continued to increase last week. The 30-year fixed rate rose to 6.79 percent – the highest level since November 2022 and 270 basis points higher than a year ago,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “Even with higher rates, there was an uptick in application...

A lot has changed over the past year, and you might be wondering what’s in store for the spring housing market.  http://dlvr.it/SkYPmG

While the musical world mourns the loss of Gary Rossington, the last original Lynyrd Skynyrd band member, and I head to San Diego this morning for the TMC event, but I’ve heard through channels that my cat Myrtle is thinking about copywriting her trill after hearing the news that the Toblerone candy company is removing the Matterhorn from its label due to pressure from Swiss authorities: 80 percent of raw materials must come from Switzerland, so it’s a numbers game. Being a loan officer is a numbers game: so many calls and emails per day, yield so many call backs, yield so many applications, yield so many eventual closings. Day after day, and it is not glamorous. There’s a dog team race that is also a numbers game. The 1,000-mile Iditarod kicked off in Willow, Alaska, 70 miles north of Anchorage, with a finish line in Nome. This year there are only 33 mushers, a record low since the first race in 1973. The average number of starts in the first 50 races was 63 contenders, but only 823 m...

5 weeks ago, markets digested a very ho-hum Fed announcement and rate hike, eventually rallying to the prevailing range floor just under 3.40% in 10yr yields.  A day and a half later, the 517k NFP number caused yields to blast off on a fantastically frustrating voyage up an over 4%.  Powell had a chance to comment on the NFP shocker a few days later and basically said "see!  This is what we're trying to warn you guys about!"  He stopped short of saying the Fed should move back up to 50bp hikes or consider changing the well-established game plan of 'a few more hikes, then hold." Since that post-NFP appearance, there have been several more data-driven rate spikes. Markets are anxious to see if the balance of that data is enough for Powell to sing a different tune, thus providing a valuable preview of the next Fed meeting in 2 weeks.  The base case would be for him to bowl down the middle and leave it up to the forthcoming CPI and NFP numbers to determine the ne...

During the pandemic, many of us reexamined the meaning of home for ourselves and our loved ones.  http://dlvr.it/SkVHMJ

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Some things are nearly timeless, like this annual list of “10 Things to Do,” most of which can be applied any year. Here in Las Vegas, the time of sunrise is 6:05AM, and yes, I’ve been up for a few hours by then, not getting into bed. But can’t you almost feel the earth moving around the sun? Anchorage is picking up 6 minutes of daylight per day; Kanas City 4. Over a week that’s… uh… 7 times… well, you can figure it out per week. Every spring it is remarkable. What some consider remarkable, although not in a good way, is how we find mortgage rates in the 7s again, and the talk here at the Lenders One event is what can be done about it. Despite the yield curve being inverted (2-year yields are .8 percent higher than 10-year yields), once again IMBs are searching for hidden ARM buyers, good home equity products, and continuing to offer down payment assistance programs, bond programs, and buydowns. But for many, the hope of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in the 5s is temporarily shelved. (T...

You may have seen reports in the news recently saying it’s better to rent right now than it is to own your home. But before you let that impact your decisions, you should understand what these claims are based on. http://dlvr.it/SkRGP0

The volume of mortgage application activity for both refinancing and purchasing fell again last week. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of application volume, decreased 5.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis during the week ended February 24 and was 4 percent lower on an unadjusted basis.    The Refinance Index was down 6 percent compared to the previous week and was 74 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 31.8 percent of total applications from 32.5 percent during the prior period. [refiappschart] The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index also suffered a 6 percent loss. The unadjusted version was down 3 percent week-over-week and 44 percent below its pace in the same week of 2022.   [purchaseappschart] MBA spokesperson Joel Kan, vice president and chief economist, said, “The 30-year fixed rate increased to 6.71 percent last week, the highest rate since November 2022, which ...