Seattle Mortgage News For The Week of January 25th
January 25, 2010 by Michael Pollock · Comments
The beginning of 2010 was marked by higher mortgage rates but we continued to see some improvement with the third week of declines in a row. The average for a 30 Year Fixed Conventional loan as reported by Freddie Mac dropped to 4.99% from 5.06% the previous week. That was in a week that had little economic reports/news but interest rates dropped based upon economic concerns with money flowing out of the stock market and into bonds last week. This week should hold more economic news such as the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday, which will set the Fed Funds rate; reports on New Home Sales, Initial Jobless Claims, Gross Domestic Product & Consumer Sentiment. So how do those impact mortgage rates you ask???
In general if those reports match expectation of the market we won’t see much change, but if they are better than the market expects it shows signs of an improving economy and it’s likely mortgage rates will rise as investors move out of bonds into the stock market. If we get worse numbers than expected, as we did today with Existing Home Sales figures coming in at 5.45M with the market expecting 5.9M, we will see rates hold steady or potentially improve. With all of theser reports out this week it’s likely we’ll have some movement in rates depending on how things shake out and look to investors.
The overall mortgage market right now is quite volatile within a small range. Most quotes I’m making to clients range between 4.75% and 5.125% depending on the day, their credit rating and desire to pay origination fees or not. I am in general encouraging most clients to lock-in their rates now as we expect rates to continue to slowly rise this year as mentioned before in my 2010 mortgage outlook post.
Michael Pollock is an Accredited Buyers Representative, member of the Seattle King County Association of Realtors and Licensed Loan Originator in Washington. He also works with clients in the Tacoma/Pierce County area – visit us at www.tacomapowersearch.com
