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Mortgage rates are low because of 4 forces, each in place since 2009. Today, those forces fade into history. When they're gone, so will low mortgage rates. Read why mortgage rates are positioned to rise, and rise sharply.
The mortgage market is loaded up with 3 years of negative expectations. And, once those forces reverse, they'll reverse quickly, sending mortgage rates soaring. It's time to execute on that mortgage plan. Rates are poised to rise.
Mortgage rates are ultra-low these days, but they ought to be lower. Mortgage lenders may be holding mortgage rates artificially high.
Mortgage rates are getting slaughtered this month; rising every day since January ended. It's an historic losing streak for conventional mortgage rates.
There's an old adage in the mortgage business: "Rates take the stairs down, and the elevator up." It's supposed to mean that mortgage rates go up faster than they come down. It's practically gospel among the older crowd. Turns out, though, it's completely false.
Forget about that 4.500 percent, 0-point mortgage rate you passed on last month. It's gone. Today, conforming mortgage rates are bearing down on 6 percent. For a homeowner in Cincinnati with a $300,000, fixed-rate home loan, the impact is huge. Since the unofficial start of summer, rising mortgage rates have added $240 to a monthly mortgage payment.
If you've never heard of mark-to-market accounting, you're not alone. It's an accounting method so dually complex and arcane that unless you need it in the day-to-day functions of your job, you'd look at its description and be, like, "whatever".
Mortgage bond markets are signaling a slight return to risk this morning. If you're watching the wrong market indicators, though, you probably didn't get the memo. Looking at the chart above, we see that as of 9:02 AM ET: Mortgage-backed securities are improved by 28 basis points 10-year U.S. treasury...
After writing yesterday's blog post, my ThinkPad went blue. Cue the video above. It's a shame because the post went deep on Wall Street's recent troubles and how each piece of bad news actually helps everyday homeowners. When I went to publish, the post vanished. And by that point, markets...
For years, people unfamiliar with the mortgage industry have said that the government's 10-year treasury note is a reasonable proxy for mortgage rates. This is flat out wrong. The only security that matters to mortgage rates is the price of a mortgage-backed bond. The chart at right supports this idea....
This chart may read like gibberish, so I notated it. It's meant to illustrate that daily mortgage rates are not based on the yield of the 10-Year Treasury Note. Sure, there is a long-term correlation between the two, but "long-term" doesn't do us any good when we're looking to lock...
The trend is still holding, so to hammer the point home: to know what mortgage rates are doing lately, just check the stock market. As stocks go down, mortgage rates go down As stocks go up, mortgage rates go up This is not a long-term, direct relationship by any means...
Home buyers and other people in the market for a new mortgage should be thanking the Fed right now. In its post-meeting press release last week, the Federal Open Market Commitee made a few choice statements about the economy that helped mortgage rates fall for the first time in 6...
If you look at mortgage rates today and compare them to January's numbers, not much has changed: 30-year fixed: Still hovering near 6 percent 7-year ARM: Still lower than 30-year fixed rates 5-year ARM: Still lower than 7-year ARM rates But on a day-to-day basis, the market is not as...
Broadly, mortgage rates fell in 2007. It's befuddling because there are two major reasons why mortgage rates should have increased in 2007: The U.S. dollar took a precipitous decline against world currencies, devaluing mortgage bonds Inflation ran beyond the top of the Fed's comfort zone for most of the year,...
I am working with a Dublin-based real estate developer, providing Irish real estate investors with mortgages for United States-based properties. A project on which we are currently working has been interesting in context of how the mortgage market is changing. When we started work on this Chicago-based condo building, the...
Most American homeowners: Live in homes whose loan sizes are less than $417,000 Own one home and call it a primary residence Can document their income using W-2 statements and/or tax returns Have at least a modest savings account Have at least the average credit score of 678 Do not...
If you're a first-time reader, here's the first thing you get to learn at The Mortgage Reports: Mortgage interest rates are determined by the price of mortgage bonds. Nothing else, nothing more. If mortgage bond prices are down, mortgage rates will be higher. If mortgage bond prices are up, mortgage...
Did you see the BNP Paribas press release last week that said it's halting withdrawals from some of its funds? My favorite part is how blunt the first sentence is below (bold added for emphasis): "The complete evaporation of liquidity in certain market segments of the US securitisation market has...
A favorite question from my clients is "Should I lock my mortgage rate, or should I float my mortgage rate?" I am firmly in the "Lock Now" camp and have written about this more than a few times. My standard answer to the questions has lately taken a different spin,...
