The Chicago 77

11 March 2011 – This week I feel a bit like Oliver Twist with my bowl outstretched in front of me as I beg for more. The lack of upward movement alone should be considered stupendous, but we actually saw a nudge down in pricing. I cannot, however, get past the belief that we should […]

4 March 2011 – I usually like being right. In my last update, I addressed the fickleness of markets and advised that the lower rates of late could be a fleeting affair. Based on the events of the last week, the turned out to be more prophecy than prognostication as we saw the week end […]

25 February 2011 – Finally, after weeks of pent up parody lyrics I am again able to unleash upon you, my loyal readers, a musical interlude and tribute the late, great Groucho Marx. generic cialis from canada Libya (Sung to Lydia, The Tattooed Lady) Ooooooooooooooooooh Libya oh Libya, Oh have you seen Libya Libya a […]

18 February 2011 – This week, we finally saw a return to normalcy. For months, mortgage professionals have felt like we had stepped through the lending looking glass into some Carrollesque world driven by completely different laws of nature and physics. We have been scratching our heads, perplexed by the mortgage markets ability to repeatedly […]

11 February 2011 – I have begun to use a good news/bad news analogy when speaking with my clients about locking, which I feel provides a good characterization of the week that was in mortgage rates. A good number of these clients had loans in process and chose to follow my advice to lock over […]

4 February 2011 – Well this week I am disappointed. I had a great weekly planned. A parody of Walk Like an Egyptian entitled Riot Like an Egyptian that had all sorts of great connections between the craziness in the Middle East to higher oil prices, a spooked stock market and better mortgage rates, but […]

28 January 2011 – This week presented a huge amount of risk for rate watchers. With a slew of economic data, a Fed meeting, the State of the Union address and some T-bill auctions, there was the potential for rates to hit some new highs. Luckily, this did not occur. cytotec pricing From the government […]

21 January 2011 – So this week, I had a bit of writer’s block. I sat and thought about how I can best describe the current level of lunacy and frustration in the mortgage market. Then, like a beam from Heaven it came to me in the memories of my favorite Warner Brother’s cartoons and […]

14 January 2011 – Never has flat felt so good. For weeks, lenders have been living with the specter of further rate spikes looming like the sword of Damocles. Luckily the thread has held and, although the sword remains, we have lived another week without the aforementioned drop. In this “take what you can get, […]

7 January 2011 – The word of the week is jobs. For months, we have heard economists near and far assure us that as go jobs so goes the economy. After all, to buy goods and pay their mortgages, consumers need a steady and predictable source of income, i.e. a job. Now after painful year […]

17 December 2010 – This week in mortgage interest rates could have been worse. While we started with another upward climb, rates for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages retreated a bit by Thursday. Based on the extreme pain of the last 30 or so days, this was jump up and kick your heels together […]

3 December 2010 – This week, I do believe that a little levity is in order. So, without further ado: A large passenger train was crossing the country. After they had gone some distance, one of the two engines broke down. find cheapest viagra “No problem,” the engineer thought and carried on at half power. […]

19 November 2010 – “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.” A simple quote that definitely describes the most recent week in the mortgage markets. Unfortunately it was more of the latter for those hoping for the salad days of conforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conforming loans below 4.375% Since […]