Your Hopefully Lowest Rate for Your Refinance or Purchase is Positive Today

Yesterday we talked about some economic reports that may have barring on today's rates and maybe even more Monday. The December Industrial Report was twice as bad as expected, www.bloomberg.com reported. It also reported that auto output fell to the lowest in more than a century.
The Consumer Price Index was another report that came out, and it proved to meet right about even with expectations, so that won't help rates.
Defining Consumer Price Index- defined by Department of Labor Statistics as (CPI) program produces monthly data on changes in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services

Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that we see a mid day change in rates for the better. The pricing for 30 and 15 year fixed loans barely edged out yesterday's pricing and may not have been enough to shave off today's rates by .125%, but a bettering again today or Monday by any amount should deliver a change by .125% or at best .25% for prospective refinancers and buyers.

How to find the best interest rate for your refinance watching the market?

At this point, making judgment to forecast what the market will deliver in reference to the best time to lock your interest rate has been a coin flip. This week and last week haven't necessarily followed the rules of the "game", so to speak. As economic reports continue to come out in the refinance seekers favor, the Stocks have taken their hits, but the bonds haven't executed to the extent that we needed them to for rates to drop.

On the other hand, rates have held tight and stayed flat overall in the past week and we haven't lost much ground. Getting that super low sub 5% rate in the 4.25%-4.5% range isn't out of the question. The experts at www.Moving.com are still releasing the knowledge about upcoming economic reports that can give us all hope that rates may still lower. Here is the commentary from Moving.com that may service our needs for lower rates.

Three economic reports, and we hope they all work in our favor. Moving.com said, "There are three relevant reports on the agenda for tomorrow. The first is December's Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is also one of the most important monthly reports that we see since it measures inflationary pressures at the consumer level of the economy...Weaker than expected readings should lead to bond improvements and lower mortgage rates tomorrow since this is the most important of the three." This could mean that tomorrow rates open up nicely for us if the reports work in our favor, or at least by the end of the day tomorrow.

"December's Industrial Production report is the second report to be posted tomorrow. It will be released at 9:15 AM ET and measures output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities." When the stock market sees the reports at 9:15am, that should be enough time to rally the selling of stocks and buying of bonds in time to give the banks what they need to confidently make their decisions on our hopeful lower rates...assuming the reports work in that direction.

"The final report of the week is January's preliminary reading to the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment. This index measures consumer willingness to spend and can usually have enough of an impact on the financial markets to change mortgage rates." This is the final report for tomorrow and cross your fingers.

If all reports do what we want them to, and rates fall, I'll Blog about it and let you know what the outcome is. If there is not good news, I'll say now, have a great weekend and better luck next week.

2009 Economic Forecast

Over a week ago, I was able to make it to the Ted Jones 2009 Economic Forecast. Ted is the Cheif Economist for Stewart Title. There are many great points he made, and in this Blog, I want to just touch one that made the most since to me as I have been thinking similarly throughout the past year. If you would like to read more about Ted's forecasting and thoughts, you can go to Ted's Blog.

The title of the portion I wanted to share is, "Loan Modifications Do Not Work".

In the forecast Ted revealed the statistics, "Data from banks show that more than half of loans modified during the first three months of the year were delinquent by 30 days just six months after the terms of the loans were changed, John C. Dugan, the comptroller of the currency, said at a conference in Washington. After eight months, 58 percent were delinquent again."
Ted went on to explain that our country spent money in an area of the economy that has a proven track record of failure and lack of responsibility. The sub prime break down and alternative lending catagories made loans available to people that had less than perfect credit history. Drug abusers are fare game in this illustration. Yeah, spending money above your means is not quite like sticking a needle in your arm and going to rehab for months to just come out and begin sticking needles in your arm again. On the other hand, these comparisons are congruent with the fact that history proves that humans are creatures of habit, and a person's character develops life's habits. In the end, changing one's own character is a very hefty goal to take on and few are able to take on such a challenge. Changing is hard.

Now, Ted didn't use the above to illustrate his points...they are all mine and I own these thoughts myself. In conclusion, is it right to put the major focus and control of getting our country out of this holewe are in into the hands of the same people who got us here in the first place? They have a track record of not planning and budgeting, and making rash emotional decisions when making purchases that eventually bring their lives and families into bankruptcy and foreclosure. Within the list of failed families and foreclosures, there is a large number that had little to no roll in the doom that they encountered because their jobs were lost and the income they had went away. I know that all families within this foreclosure group weren't led by an undisciplined person and some were a product of the economic environment. Lets not on the other hand, focus our efforts and put the control in the hands of the folks who previously failed. The above statistics show that this is exactly what has begun to happen. The failed mortgages that were modified are failing again.

What should we have done? Sometimes the experts and leaders of our country have to make decisions that don't necessarily feel right to the masses like a father does to his child. I'm not an economist, so I can't very well reflect on this subject in a concluding statement and offer the answer to our economic wows. It just doesn't sound right though to continue "putting the ball in the quarterback's hands that has a history of fumbling the ball".

Home Investor Group/Club/Networking

During the past couple years as loan programs for investor loans began to diminish, numerous investor clients have called a halt to the hustle and bustle of buying new investment homes and cashing out current ones to buy new ones. In the meanwhile, I can just picture them in my head sitting around twiddling their thumbs and because so many of them are high energy people by nature, I figure they have learned to twiddle thumbs at back breaking speeds...if you know exactly the personality that comes with the "get'r done" type I am familiar with. (:

I would like to get involved in a Home Investor Group or Club and understand that there are some spread out through the DFW. If anyone is familiar with an Investor Club/Group/Networking organization, please let me know so I can refer my "thumb twiddlers" there until they figure out what to do next.

Best wishes to all for the Holidays and may God help play a part in it. Lets keep Christ in Christmas.

Interest Rates In Relation with Bond and Stocks This Week

Moving.com reported some good news to start the week off if you are looking to refinance your home or buy a home for the short term. The report went like this, "Monday's bond market has opened in positive despite early stock gains. The stock markets are starting the week off strong with the Dow up 276 points and the Nasdaq up 45 points. The bond market is currently up 7/32, but we will still see an increase in this morning's mortgage rates of approximately .500 of a discount due to weakness late Friday."This means that we can expect this weeks rates to start off on a positive, but for the remainder of the week and month there are other "targets" to watch to see where they will go from here.
The closing commentary at Moving.com followed up to give us the best expectations if you were unsure what might come of interest rates for the remainder of they week. They said, "This week is moderately busy in terms of the number of economic releases scheduled for release. There are four on the agenda but two of them are considered to be very important that can heavily influence the markets and mortgage pricing. In addition, there is a 10-year Treasury Note auction Thursday that may hurt or help boost bond prices, depending on how strong of a demand there is in the sale. Since all of the data is scheduled for release Thursday and Friday, the most movement in rates will likely be the latter part of the week.

There is no relevant economic news scheduled for release today, tomorrow or Wednesday. The first data is October's Goods and Services Trade Balance report early Thursday morning. This report gives the size of the U.S. trade deficit, but it is the week's least important release. It is expected to show a $54.0 billion trade deficit. Unless it varies greatly from forecasts, I don't expect it to affect mortgage pricing.

Overall, expect to see a pretty volatile week in the financial markets and mortgage pricing with the most movement Thursday and Friday. Friday's Retail Sales and PPI reports can cause a great deal of movement in rates. Due to the expected volatility, I am holding the current lock recommendations. However, please maintain constant contact with your mortgage professional if you have not locked an interest rate yet."