Eye On Housing
In the past month, total mortgage activity, as measured by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Market Composite Index, underwent a series of weekly declines, but increased in the latest week by 8.5 percent. The latest week’s survey is for the week ending March 4. The latest week’s activity consisted of an 8.6 percent increase in purchasing and an 8.5 percent… Read More ›
Over the last month, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) tracked 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was showing a greater constancy than the volatility it had displayed in the prior months, staying between 3.10 percent and 3.20 percent, and dropped in the latest week, falling to 3.09 percent. Similarly, the MBA’s Market Composite Index sharply rebounded last week by 16 percent from lower activity levels for most of the month. The rebound, as the MBA cites, may have… Read More ›
Over the last month, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) tracked 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate dipped below the elevated levels shown in April, mirroring a similar decline in Treasury yields. For the week ending May 14, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 3.15%. The MBA’s Market Composite Index, reflective of activity in refinancing and purchase mortgages, changed course compared to… Read More ›
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Weekly Application Survey shows that, for the week ending December 11, 2020, mortgage application activity decreased by 1.1% from the prior week on a seasonally adjusted basis, as indicated by its Market Composite Index. One of its two constituent indexes, the Purchasing Index, increased by 1.8% from the previous week while the other, the… Read More ›
In November, the yield on the 10-year Treasury trended upwards while the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate, as measured by Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), continued to fall. Thus, the widely tracked spread between these two indicators, i.e. the spread, narrowed. The above figure shows that, per the latest month’s data, the spread was as low as 179 basis… Read More ›
In October 2020, the spread between the 10-year Treasury yield and the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate, as measured by Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), significantly narrowed as Treasury rates were pushed upward in anticipation of a vaccine breakthrough and a rebound in the labor market and as mortgage rates remained low. At the beginning of October, the 10-year… Read More ›
In September 2020 and thru the first week of the 2020’s fourth quarter, the 10-year Treasury Constant Maturity rate trended slightly higher, while the 30-year fixed mortgage rate, as determined by Freddie Mac’s Primary Market Mortgage Survey (PMMS), trended lower. The net result of these movements was that the overall spread trended lower in September. The PMMS’s latest mortgage rate… Read More ›
The month of August, in terms of the spread between the 10-year U.S. Treasury rate and the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate, was characterized by weekly declines, only to rise slightly by the first week of September. The 10-year U.S. Treasury rate is the rate that the U.S. government is willing and obligated to pay on the 10-year Treasury note, thus… Read More ›
The month of July witnessed a sustained downward trend in the 10-year U.S. Treasury, as it dipped below 0.6%. Despite the downward trend of Treasuries, which are a proxy measure of the risk-free rate that the government offers on debt, mortgage rates through July did not decrease proportionately. The spread between the 10-year Treasury and the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate… Read More ›
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate has been known to follow, albeit loosely, the 10-year Treasury yield. The latter is a widely tracked economic indicator and serves not only as a sign for the pulse of the U.S. economy, but also as a premium for pricing myriad financial instruments, upon which characteristics specific to the financial instrument are added. As 10-year… Read More ›