Reporting from Washington — For years the federal government prohibited the use of Federal Housing Administration mortgage financing by buyers purchasing homes from sellers who had owned the property for less than 90 days. The idea was to prevent speculators from defrauding the government through quick flips of houses — often involving straw buyers and [...]
Last Week; interest rates increased on treasuries but remained unchanged for the mortgage markets The stock market rallied, defying those that continue to expect a big decline. Equity markets had a small retracement two weeks ago but it only lasted a few days and took the DJIA down 6.0% from its recent high last year. [...]
Last Week; wasn’t a good one for the economic bulls, and particularly those that think the housing markets are making a turn. Jan existing home sales were expected to have increased about 1.0%, they tanked to a decline of 7.7% with the inventory of unsold homes increasing to 7.8 month from 7.2 months in Dec. New [...]
On the first Friday of every month, the U.S. government releases its Non-Farm Payrolls data from the month prior. The data is more commonly known as “the jobs report” and it swings a big stick on Wall Street. Especially now — many analysts believe job growth is tightly linked to the future of the U.S. economy.
In a news-heavy week, mortgage markets improved last week, adding to a 3-week rally. But, given last week’s data and domestic story lines, it’s surprising that rates actually fell.