Bankrate.com Mortgage Trend Index (October 23, 2008)

• Tweet

I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey is now available.

As a reminder:

1. The survey is for conforming mortgages only.
2. Send me an email if you'd like an actual rate quote.
3. I send 140-character market updates on Twitter a few times daily.

Anyway, on to the group's predictions for the next 30 days:

• 15% of participants predict rates will increase
• 46% of participants predict rates will decrease
• 39% of participants predict rates will remain unchanged

I am predicting that rates will decrease over the next 30 days, but that doesn't mean you should necessarily follow my advice when choosing whether to lock a rate, or float it.  My advice may not be appropriate for your individual situation.

From the Bankrate.com survey:

"The reports of consumer spending's demise have been greatly exaggerated."

Last week, the brief stock market rally was stymied by weak data from the Retail sector.  Consumer spending fell by its largest amount in 3 years to which analysts responded: "The economy will slow into a recession, if it hasn't already."

From a textbook perspective, the analysis makes perfect sense.  Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the nation's economy and, without that spending, the economy would slow. 

But, we don't live in a textbook world -- we live in a real one.  And in the Real World, Americans like to buy things.  They especially like to buy things.  There's some terrific evidence of this, actually, from Apple.  From July-September 2008, even as CNBC bombarded the nation with news of pending economic Armageddon, Apple managed to post "stunning" sales numbers.

Americans love their gadgets and November 1 marks the start of Gadget Season.  Consumer spending should recover and that will be good news for the economy and for mortgage rates.  Maybe the analysts will do their dance of joy.

Either way, over the next 30-60 days, expect mortgage rates will be all over the place.  Some days up, some day down, but overall unchanged.  To know what's happening now, get your near-real time market updates from me @mortgagereports on Twitter.