Leave the Middle for Your Mortgage Planner and the End for you, Mr. Bottom Line Thinker

This message is for those bottom line type buying a home or refinancing for the 2ND, 3rd, 4Th, and 5Th time. You only know enough to endanger the possibility of having correct expectations. In mortgage, it's not the loan consultants job to meet your expectations, but it is his job to set your expectations and then try to exceed them. It doesn't matter how many loans you have been involved in, you have no business setting your own expectations except of course for what you pay and the obvious...the middle is best set by your mortgage planner.
Many of those ultra macho, "I'm a spunky business thinker" type when it comes to knowing about getting a loan, think they are the "Bo knows" of mortgage because they have a history of closing loans. Quote me if you like, in the mortgage industry right now, June 2009, there are NO EASY loans...only a little exaggeration there, but "Mr thinker" reading this should not think that he knows mortgage and because he makes a million dollars a year and is only buying a $200k home, he is the exception, and "this should be easy". STOP it. Just for a minute TAKE ADVICE and turn your "I'm getting sold radar" off and not just hear, but listen and realize that you might not know it all.
For the bottom line thinkers, John Maxwell says, you have the "ability to focus on results and maximize return to reap the full potential of your thinking". Mr bottom line thinker, relieve yourself from thinking you might have a clue in how the transaction process might go for your transaction so you can not just hear but listen to your mortgage planner tell you what the transaction process is going to look like, so your expectations are 100% advised expectations and not 50/50 expectations...50 being your own and 50 being your advised. Remember, you aren't a transaction or process thinker when you are outside your strong suit. You are a bottom line thinker and if you want to be happy at the end of the transaction where your bottom line gratification happens, then let the middle be led by your advisor.

Mortgage Planner Small Print Disclosure: Notice there are no explanations of why you should be sure and set your goal to have 100% advised expectations right now rather than 50/50. If the mortgage planner your talking to exudes a character that you can't trust for that 100% and let go of your 50%, then it's time to switch. If I tried to explain why the transaction process in mortgage is shifty and why, I wouldn't know to whether to start at number 1 reason, or number 50 and if I started anywhere in between, it would not end up being a good example for one of the reasons your loan has turbulence within the middle of your transaction.
Love, Listen, and Learn from your Mortgage Planner for Life and if you can't do all three, maybe it's time to change.

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.

Unbelievably Super Low Rates Today, but What About The Rest of the Week

Ultimately, yesterdays economic news was GREAT for today's rates, but there was some major volatile "others" that gave us a mid day worsening. In the end, we saw better rates today still, thanks to Bond gains like I haven't seen in a long time.
This morning the bond market was currently up 45/32, and usually we see it up on average of around 15/32 or so, so you can imagine how well it started today.
Tomorrow morning brings us the release of weekly unemployment figures from the Labor Department.
Moving.com, my favorite mortgage rate commentary site said the following. This data is not usually of much importance to the markets because it tracks only a week's worth of new claims. However, the second report of the day is only moderately important so if this data varies greatly from forecasts it could influence bonds enough to affect mortgage pricing. It is expected to show that 55 the week's last piece of economic news will be posted tomorrow morning with the release of the Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) for the month of November. This 10:00 AM release attempts to measure economic activity over the next three to six months. It is expected to show a sizable decline in activity, meaning that it predicts slower economic activity over the next several months. This probably will not have much of an impact on bond prices or affect mortgage rates unless it exceeds current forecasts of a 0.5% decline from October's reading. If it shows a larger decline, the bond market may move slightly higher, improving mortgage rates slightly.
8,000 new claims for benefits were filed last week.
In the end, this just means that they don't expect rates to sit this low for long, but there may be economic news in the coming weeks that return it to this rate low again soon.
My advice on your lock decision, DON'T BE GREEDY. Lock your loan now.