DOGE’s erratic approach may jeopardize efforts to weaken the agency, anonymous sources warned. The Musk team’s unpredictable actions could face legal challenges—potentially paving the way for a resilient CFPB to endure.

The Massachusetts attorney general noted some consumers were caught by surprise when they realized the full cost of their agreements after signing.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is the latest federal banking agency to let go of probationary employees.

The state’s insurance commissioner made the change following analysis of title industry profits and expenses in Texas provided by its stakeholders.

These home lenders with under 100 employees are considered among their staffs the best mortgage company to work for in 2025.

Parent company Remax is reporting growing momentum in Wemlo, its technology unit that offers processing automation for loan brokers, which hiked prices last year.

Solid Conclusion to a Solid Week

Bonds benefited from a one-two punch of economic data and stock market weakness on Friday, eventually helping 10yr yields flirt with their lowest levels since December 18th (Feb 5th and 7th still technically a hair lower). MBS have outperformed over that time, briefly hitting December 13th levels during today’s best moments.  While the morning gains were clearly tied to the S&P PMI data, afternoon gains came courtesy of a flight to safety with investors dumping stocks aggressively. 

Econ Data / Events

S&P Services PMI

49.7 vs 53.0 f’cast, 52.9 prev

S&P Manufacturing PMI

51.6 vs 54.5 f’cast, 51.2 prev

Consumer Sentiment

64.7 vs 67.8 f’cast, 71.1 prev

Market Movement Recap

09:53 AM moderately stronger overnight with additional gains after the PMI data.  MBS up roughly a quarter point and 10yr down 4.5bps at 4.462

01:14 PM Stocks are tanking and pulling bond yields lower (not always the way it works, but that’s how it’s working today). MBS up 10 ticks (.31) and 10yr down 8.8bps at 4.418

04:36 PM MBS still 10 ticks higher (.31). 10yr just off strongest levels, down 7.4bps on the day at 4.432

Back on December 18th, rates began the day fairly close to where they ended the previous day. In the afternoon, rates surged sharply higher following the Fed announcement. Even since then, the average 30yr fixed rate has operated almost exclusively above 7%.  Rates dipped a pinky toe into the 6% range on Feb 5th and then a few more toes last Friday.  Now today, we’re ending another week with damp digits, right in line with last Friday at the best levels since December 18th.  Today’s improvement was initially driven by weak economic data this morning in the form of S&P Global’s service sector index dropping sharply to the lowest levels since the middle of 2023. Rates tend to benefit from economic weakness. The next leg of the improvement was mainly seen in underlying bond markets, and it came courtesy of a big stock market sell-off.  Stock market weakness has a mixed relationship with bonds/rates.  There are times where they move in unison and other times, in opposite directions.  Today’s version involved organic, heavy selling in stocks which ultimately pushed some investors into the bond market as a safe haven. When investors buy more bonds, rates drop, all other things being equal. These additional gains in the bond market occurred after most mortgage lenders published their initial rates for the day.  Only a handful of lenders dropped their rates in the afternoon in response to the additional bond market gains. 

Per the latest release from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), both refinance and purchase indices decreased this week. In terms of the change from the previous week, it was the biggest drop so far this year, but not remotely as big as last week of 2024.  Here is the refi index in terms of week-over-week change: And here is the exact same data, but expressed in terms of the outright index: If we’re just focusing on 2025, the chart above doesn’t look too bad for refi demand.  But in case anyone needed to be reminded, the farther back one looks into the past, the more sobering the current levels become–even those seen at last year’s peak. Purchase activity struggled as well, down 6% weekly, just barely beating the drop seen in the first week of the year in terms of week-over-week change. In outright terms, this brings purchase activity back near the middle of its recent range. The following bullet points offer a few highlights of changes in the % share of total activity for various categories: ● FHA Share increased from 16 to 16.6 ● VA Share decreased from 14.6 to 14.2 ● Refi Share decreased from 40.2 to 38.7

The Census Bureau released its New Residential Construction report this week, frequently referred to by its principal component “housing starts” (a term for the start of the first phase of new home construction). In addition to housing starts, the data also logs building permits as well as completions.  There’s not always a perfectly linear correlation between the various metrics for a variety of reasons. Some permits never turn into construction, for instance.  Sometimes there’s a backlog of permits waiting on materials, labor, or weather before construction can begin.  In general, building permits remain more even-keeled while housing starts gyrate.  The past three reports have been a good example of this.  During that time, building permits have barely budged at an annualized pace of 1.49m, 1.48m, and 1.48m in Nov, Dec, and Jan respectively. Meanwhile, housing starts have whipsawed from 1.305m to 1.515m and now back down to 1.366m.   Using “millions” as a unit number makes it easy to overlook the fact that we’re talking about a swing in this year’s national housing availability of a whopping 149k units.  But even then, such a swing doesn’t necessarily look too troubling in the bigger picture. Housing completions suggest an even lower cause for concern of the trajectory of construction. Regionally, the biggest decline in percentage terms was in the Northeast (-27.6%). But in terms of outright units, the South led the decline with a drop of 207k.  Contrast that to the Northeast’s unit count only declining by 40k.