How to Follow the Mortgage Market

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Nothing is more critical to your client in this volatile mortgage market than knowing what is really going on and why. This makes it really important to develop a strategy for tuning into and analyzing the mortgage market.

Actually, the mortgage market can be very difficult to watch in action because unlike the stock market, which is directly affected by buying and selling of companies’ securities the mortgage market is only indirectly effected by securities trading.

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I will avoid a long dissertation on how mortgage rates are set and go straight to what is most important-monitoring the trends in the mortgage market.

1.    Start with a macro view. In a second I will give you some resources to go down in the weeds, but for now lets rely on the many experts that are already talking about what is going on in the mortgage market. Get a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.
2.    Now dig in a little with blogs and websites that are specifically covering the mortgage market for you, the mortgage broker and other mortgage industry insiders, like: Lenderama.com, Housingwire.com, and MortgageNewsDaily.com.
3.    Chances are this will be as deep as you need to go to give most of your clients a good idea of where the market is headed as well as a good idea of what your rate lock strategy should be on a daily basis. However, an exceptional mortgage broker may want to understand the “why.” That is when I go to sources like: Calculated Risk, Naked Capitalism, and Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis.
4.    Finally, if you really want to watch the bond market and see the trend line in live motion I recommend TBWS RateAlert.

Keeping on top of the mortgage market is your job. How are you doing that? Are there other resources you can recommend to mortgage brokers and lenders?

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