Intermountain Mortgage Company

Posted To: MBS CommentaryBonds began the day in modestly stronger territory. While they spend a small amount of the day trading a small distance away from those opening levels, that time and distance was never big enough to cause any concern. In short, the "consolidation" we'd hoped to confirm by seeing 10yr yields remain under 2.92% this week has officially been confirmed. If you'd prefer to approach this from a purely empirical standpoint where we forget that the Fed is a big deal next week and that traders aren't all robots, we could simply say that a slightly stronger Retail Sales report was offset by weaker performance in stocks to leave bonds to trade in line with opening levels by the end of the day. Whichever reality you choose to live in, the fact remains that next week has a fairly big...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it. […]

Posted To: Mortgage Rate WatchMortgage rates didn't move much today, and that's arguably a good thing. When the week began, we discussed the need for rates to cool-off after last week's rapid drop. Doing so would improve our chances of seeing recently lower rates stick around for more than a fleeting moment. Now here we are on Friday with the average lender not too far from last Friday's 3-month lows. Each passing day this week saw underlying market activity die down as investors circled the metaphorical wagons ahead of next week's big Fed announcement. Much of the recent improvement in rates has come courtesy of the market's read on the Fed. They're expected to be more "dovish" (i.e. more friendly in terms of monetary policy and rate hikes, ostensibly in response a growing case for economic deceleration). While various...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it. […]

Posted To: MND NewsWireConsistency can be boring, but in crazy times it can also be reassuring, even comforting. While they differ on the specifics, economists, at least those in the housing industry, seem to be coming together with much the same outlook and many of the same caveats for the next year or so. Fannie Mae's Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) team is among those who see economic growth slowing i n a more-or-less natural way , and housing's current woes settling into stability. Unless.... ESR's December Economic Developments forecasts the economy will finish the fourth quarter with 2.6 percent annualized growth, down from 3.5 percent in Q3. Over the entirety of 2018, growth will have been at a 3.1% rate, the fastest of the current expansion, slowing to 2.3 percent next year as the boost from federal...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it. […]

Posted To: MBS CommentaryIf you've truly come to an appreciation of the gravity of bonds' big picture headwinds over the past 2 years, then the past 5 weeks may feel like a stroke of luck so good that it has to change any day now. More than a few bond analysts were worried about a bigger, sharper bounce when yields first began to rise from longer-term lows on Monday morning, but the sell-off has been very gentle. Without a sharper correction that takes us higher up in the recent range, the fear is hard to quell. Are we living on borrowed time? Have we been allowed into this exclusive club by accident? Are we having some sort of reasonably good dream, destined to wake up at any moment? I could go on and on (and have!) about why 10yr yields in the 2.8-2.9% range make a fair amount of sense right now, but that...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it. […]

Posted To: Pipeline PressLots of folks in the mortgage biz like statistics and odds. They may not remember them, but they like them. (As Marcus L. writes, “People still play the lottery even though most of us can't get the USB in the first time correctly and those odds are 50/50.”) Plenty of home loans are impacted by student debt. For every 100 students who enroll full-time in college or university, 42 percent will graduate within four years and 18 percent more will graduate within six. This means that 40% of college students get all the benefits of student debt without obtaining a degree. And put another way, of those 60 students of every hundred who graduate, 42 will leave with student loans and five will default on those loans by the age of 33 . For the 40 who don’t graduate, 10 will default on...(read more)Forward this article via email:  Send a copy of this story to someone you know that may want to read it. […]