Mortgage Interest Rates Update October 3, 2016

Mortgage Rates weekly market update for the Week of August 10, 2015, by John R. Thomas with Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc. in Newark, Delaware. John Thomas is the Branch Manager, a Loan Officer and the author of the best selling book, Your Guide to Buying Your First Home in Delaware.  Call 302-703-0727 for a Rate Quote or Apply Online for Rate Quote

Mortgage Rates reached the lows not seen since May on Monday last week but then sold off till hit floor of support on Wednesday.  If you look at the mortgage bond chart below you can see bonds were able to rally off support on Wed. Bonds ended the week below where they started so mortgage interest rates did rise but with mortgage bonds rallying off support, we are recommending FLOATING your mortgage rate to start the week.

In Economic News, the Jobs Report for July 2015 was released on Friday and it showed 215,000 jobs created.  This was slightly below expectations of 229,000 jobs.  May and June were revised higher by a total of 13,000 jobs.  The Unemployment Rate stayed the same at 5.3%.  The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) remained very low at only 62.6%.  The LFPR measures the number of people 16 years and older that are able to work who are actually working.

This Jobs Report will put the Federal Reserve in a position to raise Short Term Interest Rates at their next meeting on September 17th.  If the Feds raise short term rates, this will most likely benefit mortgage bonds as the stock market will most likely sell off.  So we could see mortgage interest rates move lower after the Feds hike interest rates.

The Federal Reserves Favorite measure of inflation was released last week, which is the Core PCE. The Core PCE only rose by 0.1% which was below expectations and is only 1.3% year over year so inflation still remains very tame.

In Housing News, CoreLogic reported its Home Price Index for June 2015 which showed home prices increased by 6.5% year over year which is up from May’s 5.6%.  June 2015 represented the 40th consecutive month of the year of year price increases.  Home Prices moved up 1.7% from May 2015 to June 2015.  Home Prices are now only 7.4% below the peak of April 2006.

USDA Rural Housing Loan Underwriting Turn Times at Rural Development for files in Delaware as of 8/7/2015 they are working on reviewing files that have been submitted on 7/21/2015 so they are taking about 

10 Business days to review files Keep Reading...

Mortgage Rates weekly market update for the Week of August 3, 2015, by John R. Thomas with Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc. in Newark, Delaware. John Thomas is the Branch Manager, a Loan Officer and the author of the best selling book, Your Guide to Buying Your First Home in Delaware.  Call 302-703-0727 for a Rate Quote or Apply Online for Rate Quote

Mortgage Rates were finally able to reverse the trend and move lower last week as mortgage bonds broke through a tough ceiling of resistance.  If you look at the mortgage bond chart below, you can see the blue arrow shows the short term trend is now for bonds to move higher which moves mortgage interest rates lower.  The big green candle on Friday shows bonds closing above a huge resistance that has turned bonds lower in the past which had created a “triple top” at 103.68 which is a technical signal for bonds to sell off and move lower if don’t break through this top.  Since we broke through the triple top and closed above it at 103.84, it is a good sign for mortgage bonds to now use this previous resistance as support.  We are recommending FLOATING your Mortgage Rate to start the week but be cautious as we get close to Friday as the Jobs Report for July could be a market mover.

In Economic News, the first reading of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the 2nd quarter of 2015 was released last week and it rebounded higher to 2.3% from a very anemic 0.6% reading for Q1 of 2015.  The rebound was seen from a rise in Consumer Spending by nearly 3% and an increase in U.S. exports overseas.

In other Economic News, the price of Oil continued to drop and closed on Friday the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate was $48.21.  This drop on Friday was after OPEC announced it would not cut production even with a glut of oil on the world market.  The lower price of oil is one of the reasons the price of Stocks has moved lower.

Weekly Initial Jobless Claims came out at 267,000 claims which were below expectations of 272,000 but still an uptick of 12,000 from the previous week of 255,000 claims.  Previous weeks was a 42 year low for weekly jobless claims and are also the sample week to be used in the July Jobs Report to be released on Friday.  This could signal a very strong Jobs Report which could negatively impact the mortgage rate.

In Housing News, the National Rate of Homeownership was at a 22 year low at only 63.7% of people owning homes at end of 1st quarter of 2015 compared to 69.2% at the peak in 2004.  It hasn’t been 63.7% since 1993.  The drop in homeownership can be attributed to low inventory and the millennial generation delaying purchasing homes.

The Case-Shiller 20 City Home Price Index for May 2015 was up 4.9% from May 2015.  This shows that the housing sector remains stable and continues to show about a 5% year over year gain on home prices.

Pending Home Sales for June 2015 were down 1.8% from May but May 2015 was the best level in 9 years.  Pending Home Sales are still up 8.2% on a year over year basis so report was still a very good report on housing.  Pending Home Sales measures the number of new contracts on existing homes for sale.

The chart below shows the Change in State House Price Index for the 1st Quarter of 2015.  Delaware had an increase of

4.3% Keep Reading...

Mortgage Rates weekly market update for the Week of July 6, 2015, by John R. Thomas with Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc. in Newark, Delaware. John Thomas is the Branch Manager, a Loan Officer and the author of the best selling book, Your Guide to Buying Your First Home in Delaware.  Call 302-703-0727 for a Rate Quote or Apply Online for Rate Quote

Mortgage Rates have been on a long term trend of moving higher since the middle of April 2015.  Last week mortgage bonds were able to bounce off the lows of 2015 but still remain below the 25 days moving average which is capping bonds from moving higher.  The bonds did a rally on Friday after the Jobs Report was released.  The crisis in Greece is helping the bond markets and the “No” vote on Sunday is going to help boost the bond market as the stock market should sell off on the news.  We are recommending FLOATING Your Mortgage Rate to start the week to see if mortgage bonds can rally off the news from Greece and move above the 25 Day Moving Average.

In Economic News, the Jobs Report for June 2015 was released on Thursday morning which showed 223,000 jobs were created in June 2015 which was just below the 230,000 jobs expected.  The Unemployment Rate Dropped to 5.3% from 5.5% but this was NOT good news because the reason for the drop was because people dropped out of the workforce not because people went back to work. This can be proved by looking at the Labor Force Participation Rate which dropped to a 38 year low at 62.6%.

In Other Economic News, the Consumer Confidence for June 2015 surged to 101.4 which was above expectations and a big jump from May’s reading of 94.6.  Consumer Confidence is up because of the improving job market.

In Housing News, Pending Home Sales for May 2015  were up 0.9% from April but are up a whopping 10.4% from May 2014.  This is the best number in 9 years.  Pending Homes Sales is a measure of the number of Existing Homes that went under contract for that month.

In other Housing News, Congress has a bill that will help put private money back into the Flood Insurance Market with the Flood Insurance Market Parity and Modernization Act.  The legislation addresses two of the primary impediments to the development of a private flood insurance market: lack of clarity as to what constitutes acceptable private flood insurance and uncertainty about the effect of private insurance on the continuous coverage requirement

USDA Rural Housing Loan Underwriting Turn Times at Rural Development for files in Delaware as of 7/3/2015 they are working on reviewing files that have been submitted on

6/23/2015 Keep Reading...