What We're Hearing

Stop the presses! Interest rates are going through the roof! All the economic pundits were atwitter (and probably on Twitter) this morning after the Federal Reserve hiked its discount rate to 75 basis points from 50 bps. Keep in mind that this isn't a hike in the overnight 'Fed Funds Rate' which is still a hair above zero. However, the yield on the 10-year did rise above 3.8% early Friday and mortgage bankers can probably guess what that could signal. Then again, who knows these days? But if rates do, in fact, edge up that means mortgage servicing rights (in theory) will increase in value. Then again, value is relative when the overall delinquency rate is in the 10% range. Meanwhile, the lead story in The Washington Post this morning says a commercial real estate 'crisis' could smack the nation's capital. Do tell? A few weeks back the Post reported that the commercial RE market in Washington was improving. This time around it quoted stats from CoStar Group of Bethesda, which says the market is going south fast. Hey, isn't CoStar the firm that practically stole MBA's D.C. headquarters recently -- paying just 40% of its original value? It is. Funny, that wasn't mentioned in the Post story. Just a bunch of negative numbers on the market. Of course, all this negativity could create more buying (stealing) opportunities for CoStar. Where's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when you need them?