Mortgage Rates Recover Slightly, But Thursday Could Bring Much Bigger Movement
Mortgage rates are based primarily on the prices and yields of bonds. Bonds take cues from several places, but always from inflation and the economy–at least to some extent. As such, economic reports (including those focused on inflation) can have an immediate impact on bonds and immediate implications for rates at the moment they’re released. […]
Mortgage Rates Move Higher After Fed Rate Hike, But Not Because of It
The Federal Reserve hiked rates by 0.75% yesterday and 30yr fixed mortgage rates moved moderately higher. Interestingly enough, those two things are fairly unrelated. The Fed Funds Rate (the thing the Fed “hikes” when you hear about the Fed hiking rates) applies to overnight loans among large financial institutions. It’s important, to be sure, but it […]
Mortgage Rates Fall Yet Again. How Long Can This Last?
As of yesterday, the winning streak has extended to 3 days making it a bit of unicorn and begging the question: are things changing? In some ways, things are changing. We’re witnessing a bond market that is starting to question whether or not rates have already done enough to prepare for the likely path of […]
A Rare Winning Streak For Rates, But Don’t Get Excited
Now here’s a rare thing! Mortgage rates managed to move lower, on average, for the 2nd consecutive business day on Monday. That hasn’t happened for roughly 3 weeks, and you’d need to go back another 3 weeks to see the previous example. So that’s the first caveat: these winning streaks have been few and far between. […]
Application Volume Plunges to 25 Year Low
There were two storms brewing last week and each contributed to driving mortgage applications to generational lows. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said the continuing rise in interest rates and the devastating hurricane that hit Florida and the Carolina’s contributed to a double-digit decline in its indices that measure mortgage application volume. The Market Composite Index […]
Huge Reversal For Mortgage Rates. No Promises of Sustainability
If you’re just getting caught up, mortgage rates broke above 7% on Wednesday for the first time since 2002. Yesterday was an entirely different day. In fact, rates dropped not only back below Wednesday’s levels, but all the way back to the end of last week (Thursday afternoon-ish, depending on the lender). This wasn’t necessarily the […]
Mortgage Rates Now at 20-Year Highs
The most recent historical high-water market for mortgage rates was “14 years.” It was broken so many times in September that it almost become boring last Tuesday. Now, less than a week later, 14-year highs would be more exciting than boring. As of mid-day yesterday, we’re officially at 20 year highs. What’s remarkable is that in less […]
Heartbreaking Day Leaves Mortgage Rates Much Higher Than 6.29%
At the close of business Wednesday, there was hope. Well, to be fair, there’s still hope, but it’s much less immediate, and it certainly isn’t the first thing that comes to mind today. Wednesday’s hope stemmed from a combination of factors. Rates had risen at a break-neck pace since the beginning of August, accelerating to […]
Mortgage Rates Surging to New 14-Year Highs
Mortgage rates had another moderately bad day to start the new week. The unfortunate thing about moderately bad days that occur when rates were already at 14 year highs is that we’re left with another new 14-year high. There were no new or interesting reasons for yester’s rate spike. The bond market continues getting in position […]
Big Fed Rate Hike Coming Next Week, But That’s Not What Matters
This week, we will hear from the Fed as they announce the next rate hike on September2 1st. It will be big too. Just how big is a matter of debate. 0.75% is a safe starting point, but 1.00% will be on the table as well. The former would match July’s hike–the biggest since 1994. […]