In 1997 Paula Cole came out with the smash hit “Where have all the cowboys gone?” and as I sipped my cup of Folgers (don’t judge me… boujee coffee just doesn’t do it for me) and read this Wall Street Journal article I couldn’t help but sing the catchy tune. WSJ reported that jumbo mortgage originations have dropped 12% over the last year and are down 27% from their post-crisis peak in 2017 (data was provided by Inside Mortgage Finance). This has created a ripple effect at the

Our friends at the Federal Reserve decided not to raise rates this past Wednesday… however, with the economy stronger than ever an increase is imminent. Market experts now believe that the Fed will announce its first rate increase of 2018 during its March meeting hosted by new Fed chair, Jerome Powell. These experts also believe that the increase will be around 25 basis points moving the target range for the federal funds rate between 1.5% to 1.75%. Now, don’t be alarmed, the

Photo by Jorge Alcala on Unsplash House and Senate negotiators are working on their first edits to the newly proposed tax legislation. Both sides have agreed (not officially) to limit the deduction for mortgage interest on loans to $750,000 or less, as compared to the $500,000 that the House’s original bill called for. Bloomberg has a nice article on the details here. This is a far cry from some game-changing negotiation, but it might soften the blow for the valued tax break.

As expected, Washington D.C. is going to look a lot different in 2018. On Monday Janet Yellen announced that she will be stepping down as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve upon the swearing in her successor, Jerome Powell in February. What does this mean for the rates? Nothing… the brains at Goldman Sachs and Capital Economics believe that regardless of who is the next Fed Chair… rates will be on the rise at least 4 times in 2018. Reuters published a good read on this topic l