Seattle Mortgage Rates For The Week of March 1st
Wow, March 1st is already here and the countdown has begun to the Federal Reserve’s exit from mortgage backed securities purchasing at the end of this month. We ended last week with some pretty good rates and things have continued to be positive for mortgage rates this week as well. The data this week has been of light impact although we’ve seen rates improve steadily throughout the week with figures in the reports showing DEFLATION signals (Unit Labor Costs, Factory Orders). As of today well qualified buyers should have no problem getting a rate of 4.75% on a 30 Year Fixed Conventional Loan. Here’s some of the data from the last two days:
| Date | Time (ET) | Statistic | For | Actual | Briefing Forecast | Market Expects | Prior | Revised From |
| Mar 3 | 8:15 AM | ADP Employment Change | Feb | -20K | -35K | -20K | -60K | -22K |
| Mar 3 | 10:00 AM | ISM Services | Feb | 53.0 | 51.3 | 51.0 | 50.5 | - |
| Mar 3 | 10:30 AM | Crude Inventories | 2/26 | 4.03M | NA | NA | 3.03M | - |
| Mar 3 | 2:00 PM | Fed’s Beige Book | Mar | - | NA | NA | NA | - |
| Mar 4 | 8:30 AM | Initial Claims | 02/27 | 469K | 515K | 470K | 498K | 496K |
| Mar 4 | 8:30 AM | Continuing Claims | 02/20 | 4500K | 4600K | 4600K | 4634K | 4617K |
| Mar 4 | 8:30 AM | Productivity-Rev. | Q4 | 6.9% | 6.4% | 6.3% | 6.2% | - |
| Mar 4 | 8:30 AM | Unit Labor Costs | Q4 | -5.9% | -4.4% | -4.5% | -4.4% | - |
| Mar 4 | 10:00 AM | Factory Orders | Jan | 1.7% | 2.7% | 1.8% | 1.5% | 1.0% |
| Mar 4 | 10:00 AM | Pending Home Sales | Jan | -7.6% | -1.0% | 1.0% | 0.8% | 1.0% |
Initial Jobless Claims were better than the prior period, so we snapped the three week trend of ever-increasing new claims. We were also very close to the market estimates. This is typically bad for mortgage rates and would cause them to rise. However, offsetting that is the Productivity Report. Greater productivity offsets inflation, so interest rates love a good Productivity Report. And we had a positive report with productivity gains at 6.9% which was much better than the market expectations and we saw improved interest rates/pricing late Wednesday into Thursday.
The most impactful report is to come on Friday (Unemployment Rate/Non-Farm Payroll) and will have an impact on mortgage rates for sure. It seems as though lenders are positioning themselves with the expectation of negative numbers (lower mortgage interest rates). Although if we see better than expected numbers we’ll definitely kiss those 4.75% rates goodbye and say hello to the 5′s again. Stay tuned and if there’s surprises or big numbers I will post about it.
For those of you planning to purchase or refinance in the upcoming months, I still encourage you not to wait until rates in the 4’s are a thing of the past which may come as soon as the end of the month with the Fed’s exit from supporting mortgage backed securities.
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 EXP there at www.tacomapowersearch.com
Phone Number: 206.399.1345
E-mail: michael.pollock@exprealty.com
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