From an economic standpoint, last week was an interesting one. The stock markets made strong gains last week but the mortgage markets barely moved in the wake of the Treasury’s
“toxic asset” plan.
Amongst the other news from last week:
- Existing home sales showed unexpected strength
- New home sales showed unexpected strength
- Data showed home prices rising unexpectedly
- Consumer confidence rose unexpectedly, too.
To rate shoppers, these “unexpected” developments are warnings worth heeding because mortgages trade on expectations of the future. And “the future”, you’ll remember was widely presumed to be an economic nightmare. This is one of the big reasons that mortgage rates have been so low over the last several weeks. With things outside of the auto industry coming in better than expected, we might start seeing mortgage rates creep up a bit. This sentiment was echoed by Freddie Mac interim chief John Koskinen Friday. He stated that home loan rates are near their bottom and any further decreases will be small.
Image Courtesy of Arizona Mortgage News
Article Author:
Steve HeidemanSteve has written 25 articles for us.
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Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
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Well right, I mean how much lower could they really go? No one’s really talking about how much *upward* pressure there is on rates. At some point, they’re going to have to put the brakes on…if they want to avoid runaway inflation anyway.