by Calculated Risk on 10/16/2014 07:35:00 PM

From Jann Swanson at Mortgage News Daily: Relaxed QRM Rules Expected Next Week(ht Soylent Green is People)

Federal regulators may finally produce the long anticipated market standards for Qualified Residential Mortgages (QRM), perhaps even as early as next week. The new rules are designed to ensure the quality of mortgages that are pooled and packaged into securities for sale to investors on the secondary market. Insiders expect that the final regulations will be more relaxed than those originally proposed, largely in response to demands by real estate and mortgage industry groups.

Friday:
• At 8:30 AM, Housing Starts for September. Total housing starts were at 956 thousand (SAAR) in August. Single family starts were at 643 thousand SAAR in August. The consensus is for total housing starts to increase to 1.010 million (SAAR) in September.

• Also at 8:30 AM, Speech by Fed Chair Janet Yellen, Economic Opportunity, At the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Economic Conference: Inequality of Economic Opportunity, Boston, Massachusetts

• At 9:55 AM, the Reuter's/University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (preliminary for October). The consensus is for a reading of 84.2, down from 84.6 in September.