When home prices are stable or falling, home buyers often mischaracterized their downpayment on a home, calling it their “cushion” against falling home prices.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Nobody wants to owe money when they sell their home. In fact, when asked, most people will answer that they just want to “break [...]

Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

It’s been a veritable roller coaster over the past two weeks for mortgage rates, mostly because traders can’t find the answer to the most important question facing mortgage markets:

Are in the midst of inflation, or not?

Everytime we see strong data in one sector of [...]

If the data is correct, the U.S. consumers keep doing what they do best — consume.

Despite weak consumer confidence surveys, retail sales posted a 0.7% gain, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This means that despite rising costs, Americans continue to fuel the economy.

Speaking of fuel, a large reason for the unexpectedly [...]

Just a reminder that taxes are due tomorrow, April 17 — even if your tax documents state otherwise. This is because of Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia.

Emancipation Day dates to April 16, 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in that area. [...]

Unlike the stock market, it’s hard for the average person to know when the bond market is getting turned upside-down.

So, looking back at last Friday, when mortgage rates jumped very, very quickly in a short period of time, a lot of people got surprised (and burned).

With stocks, we can all turn on [...]

So, just how quickly have the markets turned?

According to Fed Futures Trading as watched by the Cleveland Federal Reserve, on March 13, it was as likely that the August Fed Funds Rate level would be 5.250% as it would be 5.000%.

In other words, markets were betting with equal odds that [...]

Interesting fact of the day: 55.5% of “wealthy” Americans have mortgages on their primary homes vs. 44.6% of the overall population.

This doesn’t mean that the wealthy are more indebted than the rest of us; it means that the wealthy are maximizing the tax deductions that the IRS makes available to every homeowner in [...]

With three members of the Federal Reserve scheduled to speak today, don’t be surprised if mortgage rates show some brief volatility.

Despite weakness in housing, the economy has shown resiliency and continues to push forward. Markets had widely expected a slowdown, but are now having to change course — rapidly. T

his is why [...]