Home Buyers Take a Break In November

Americans have had the grace to be able to speak mostly positive about the Real Estate industry concerning its climb from recession this year, but November was not a month to keep that same route. The seasonally adjusted rate of new homes dropped by 11.3% . This was the lowest since April...355,000 for November and 345,000 in April.
The positive outlook for new construction left hopes of an expectation of 438,000 annualized rate, but by the consensus of economists in Briefing.com, we received word on a lesser amount of 400,000.
CNN Money experts suspect that this is a result of the change from the original tax credit of $8,000 that will allow a little release of pressure to buy so soon...the timeline to use these moneys was extended. Now Americans chasing that tax advantage can procrastinate a little without racing against a clock. Piggy backing on the positive reason for the negative turn, it's to be figured in that Americans are a little leery about spending money on down payment and so forth knowing that the Christmas shopping season was right around the corner in this less than stable employment market as well.
I expect the Real Estate market to show signs of life and reflect positive numbers in January and February.

Today's Expectations of Interest Rate and Fed's Next Move

First, what are the expectations of the Fed's next move on Prime Rate?
Today around 1:15, the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) is meeting and the results are to help estimate their next position on adjusting the Prime Rate. Chances are, there won't be much to expect and the disclosure of information won't REALLY say much to make heads or tails of a right hike.

Moving.com said today, "Tomorrow morning brings us the release of December's Durable Goods Orders. This data helps us measure manufacturing strength by tracking new orders at U.S. factories for products that are expected to last three or more years. The data often is quite volatile from month to month, but is currently expected to show a decline in orders of 2.0%. A larger than expected drop would be good news for bonds and mortgage rates." If you decide to follow this, you could Google the terms "December Durable Goods" and see if the decline is more than 2.0%. If it is, that could be could news for rates. If it's not, it should affect rates for the worse by much if at all unless it is much better than expected.

What to expect in mortgage interest rates by end of this week in relation to the stocks and bonds and economic reports...Lastly this week, the December New Home Sales Report is to be out, but it should have a major affect on rates either. On the other hand, if it IS worse than expected, that would couple with the rest of this weeks reports and hopefully more next week to continue building momentum for a bettering mortgage rate market.

Are you trying to decide to lock your loan or not?All signs right now would say to float, or hold off on locking and see what the end of the week brings. If you are finding a benefit in a refinance right now, my advice is to lock Friday or Monday assuming rates are worsened too badly by then and therefore cultivate your gains.

Interest Rates Are Not Looking Good

Hoping for better rates so you can lock down on a rate soon? Patience may bring fruition, or "the early bird gets the worm" and you missed the worm.
Moving.com reported today on their website about todays bond market and how it will affect today's rates and why. They did a good job of speaking in "English" about it, so I'll just quote them here.

"Tuesday's bond market has opened well into negative territory despite early stock losses. The stock markets have also shown a weak opening with the Dow down 130 points and the Nasdaq down 40 points. The bond market is currently down 29/32, which will likely push this morning's mortgage rates higher by approximately .500 of a discount point over Friday's rates. The financial markets were closed yesterday in observance of the Martin Luther King holiday.
Today's weakness in bonds is a result of renewed concern about the supply of government debt that will need to be sold to cover the economic stimulus that President Obama has hinted at. The significant new debt that will be sold makes the current outstanding bonds less attractive to investors, leading to lower bond prices and higher mortgage rates this morning."

Hopefully next week will bring better hope.