David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer | Fairway Independant Mortgage Corporation

Mortgage Rates Return to 2015 Highs

Risk is flooding back into the markets, most notably in the form of the changes in the European bond markets. After a year and a half of record lows, it would seem that things have finally turned around. Though it is still too early to know whether or not this is to be a major, long-term reversal, investors are playing it safe by dumping their bonds.

Since the European markets are connected fairly closely with US markets, this selling trend is having an effect on American mortgage rates. This is providing for a high-risk environment, and the average borrower would do well to lock in to current rates before they can jump any higher.

Rates Remain Inactive Ahead of Fed Announcement

Going into the final week of April, the mortgage market has not deviated much from the recent trend of inactivity.

This lack of significant movement in either direction can be largely attributed to the idleness in the financial markets that most strongly affect interest rates. However, this is bound to change soon. This upcoming Wednesday, we are scheduled to receive both the first quarter GDP and a highly anticipated Fed Announcement. Reports of a stronger economy could very well lead to higher rates, while a poor Fed outlook could drop rates lower.

Until these announcements occur, the mortgage market is going to be slow to move in any direction. After Wednesday, though, we can likely expect some more volatile activity.

April’s Mortgage Rates Idle

Blog Lynnwood Mortgage Loan Officer April 20th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

We’ve passed the midway point in April, and the outlook for the mortgage market is pretty flat. Despite volatility in underlying financial markets, mortgage rates can’t seem to get any significant momentum in either direction. As of the seventeenth, it is the third consecutive day of minimal movements in rates.

This lull in mortgage rate movements can be attributed to the mixed messages coming from Fed officials. Lenders are looking for definitive signals regarding an imminent rate hike. With this in mind, the common wisdom is to favor locking into current rates; it is entirely possible that rates will move significantly higher without departing from observed trends. Meanwhile, the market is looking forward to the FOMC Announcement on April 29th, representing the next event that presents a good chance to initiate greater movements in rates markets.

Freddie Mac Outlook Positive

Blog, Freddie Mac April 13th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac has released its Economic and Housing Outlook for April, and the news looks reasonably good. This is in spite of the rut that the first quarter home-buying season has apparently fallen into; for the third consecutive year, the first quarter started off with strong expectations that were quickly struck down in the fact of harsh winter weather and economic troubles.

According to chief economist Len Kiefer, the disappointments of the first quarter should not keep us from expecting good things out of the rest of 2015. He is anticipating the housing market getting a boost from strong job gains and economic growth, going as far as to forecast the best year for home sales since 2007.

Indeed, it may not be too optimistic to accept Freddie Mac’s predictions. The housing market is already accelerating after a disappointing March. Meanwhile, it is estimated that the Fed will be delaying rising rates, resulting in a slow drift upward for the next few months.

One of the big problems in the real estate market remains the lack of inventory in both homes and rental properties. With a decline in homeownership, even the robust pace of rental construction and the conversion of many single-family homes to rental properties has failed to keep up with demand. Rental vacancy rates are currently at their lowest levels since as far back as 1994.

Home Affordability Remains Strong Despite Price Rises

Blog Lynnwood Mortgage Loan Officer March 10th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

Black Knight Financial Service took a look back on January’s home affordability and foreclosure metrics, and made some interesting discoveries. It would appear that foreclosure starts reached a twelve month high at the start of 2015, both in terms of first time foreclosures and repeats. As of then, repeat foreclosures accounted for better than half of the total foreclosures.

Meanwhile, home affordability, despite two years of rising prices, remains better than what we saw prior to the housing bubble. The low interest rates at the time served well to offset price increases so that the mortgage-to-income ratio average throughout the United States was at 21%. This is an improvement over the 26% average observed from 2000-2002, but it’s still up from the 17.6% low in October of 2012.

Here in Washington state, we are slightly above the average at 21.3%. However, this represents an improvement of 6.5% from 2000-2002, exhibiting a greater-than-average increase of mortgage affordability.

March Starts with a Jump in Mortgage Rates

Blog, Mortgage Lynnwood Mortgage Loan Officer March 3rd, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

The big news as we start the month comes from pharmaceutical giant Actavis, which announced back in November that it would buy Allergan for $66 billion. In order to raise the money for this purchase, the company issued a bond deal for something in the area of $27 billion. This is the second biggest corporate bond deal ever made, beaten only by Verizon’s $47 billion deal.

This is a lot of debt to hit the market at once. To give it some perspective, consider that the last deals to have made significant waves amounted to only about $11 billion and $6 billion. Since these corporate bonds have an indirect link to the bonds that dictate mortgage rates, all of this debt is bad news for the housing market.

Unfortunately, with big-ticket events on the horizon, we likely cannot expect the market to correct itself anytime soon.

February of 2015 is a Bad Month for Mortgage Rates

Blog, Mortgage Lynnwood Mortgage Rate February 17th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

Following the recent jobs report, and with the turmoil in Europe showing no signs of subsiding, February has quickly turned into a bad month for mortgage rates. As of the 17th, rates have risen at the fastest day-over-day pace since November 8th of 2013, making this the worst month for mortgage rates since May of 2013.

It’s hard to say what we might look forward to as the month comes to a close. Rates could just as easily turn around as they could get a lot worse. Much of this rides on whether or not Europe turns a corner. Many people anticipate that Europe will continue to slide until the central bank engages in a US-style quantitative easing, which some are expecting to happen sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, every increase in rates here brings on the risk of a long-term rise, so floating is not generally a good option for people without long term time horizons.

Strong Employment Pushes Mortgage Rates Higher

Blog, Freddie Mac Lynnwood Mortgage Loan Officer February 11th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

Joblessness proved to be somewhat higher than expected last week, with the number of new claims for unemployment benefits taking a small upturn. In total, initial claims for state benefits rose by about 25,000 in the week ended February 7th, according to the Labor Department.

However, the underlying trends continue to be indicative of rising strength in the labor market. Over the past three months, over a million jobs have been created, an achievement that hasn’t been reached since 1997. The four-week moving average of unemployment claims actually fell by 3,250 last week, and this statistic is largely considered a better measure of trends in the labor market.

What this adds up to is a strong jobs report, which lends itself to a rise in mortgage rates. According to Freddie Mac, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is up. This is still considerably lower than what was observed a year ago.

February Off to a Volatile Start

Blog, Mortgage Lynnwood Mortgage Loan February 4th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

As February kicked off, mortgage rates moved upwards more quickly than they have so far in 2015. However, rates are remaining among the best seen in the past twenty-one months. The upfront costs associated with them may be higher.

This volatile activity can be attributed to the broader global financial market. A big part of this comes in the form of tension in the Greek market. The ECB is cutting Greece off, effective 2/11, due to the uncertainty surrounding the country’s austerity program. It now falls upon Greece to decide whether to exit the Eurozone or make serious changes. Depending on what Greek officials decide upon, we could see some dramatic moves in terms of bonds, stocks, and mortgage rates in the coming weeks.

Mortgage Rates Improve, Awaiting Fed Policy Announcement

Blog, Mortgage Lynnwood Mortgage Loan January 29th, 2015 David Haley Mortgage Loan Officer

Mortgage rates have been following their recent trend of minor changes as of Tuesday, with different lenders moving in different directions but remaining more or less unchanged. However, more lenders were seeing improvements on Tuesday.

This improvement can be attributed to the economic data released on Tuesday morning. The Durable Goods report was weaker than anticipated, and weak economic data has a tendency to be beneficial to bond markets and detrimental to stocks. Meanwhile, with Wednesday bringing the Fed’s policy announcement, we can expect further unified developments in the mortgage loan market. The Fed always has a strong impact on trading levels, and there is a lot of potential for great volatility in the coming days.

Schedule a Consultation