Rain City Guide

A dismal Jobs Report with the highest unemployment in 5 years and revisions for the worse to previous reports isn’t much to about…unless you’re in the market for a new mortgage.  This bad news for the economy translates to improved mortgage interest rates.   Currently (at the time of this post) I’m on my second [...]

The comparison of rates is based on when I last posted on (I skipped a week while our family was vacationing at Lake Roosevelt).   Overall, rates are slightly improved to unchanged and do continue to be volatile.
Conforming Mortgage Rates (loan amounts up to $417,000 for 1-unit properties).  The conforming rate quote below is based on owner [...]

Changes to rate are noted with a  :)  for a rate improvement or :(  when rates are higher than what I posted last week.   Seems like ever since The Tim from Seattle Bubble gave me up & down arrows, I’ve been busier–thanks The Tim! 

Conforming Mortgage Rates (loan amounts up to $417,000 for 1-unit properties).  The conforming [...]

The Jobs Report this morning wasn’t pretty.   We didn’t lose as many jobs in July at 51,000 instead of the expected loss of 75,000 (how is that for sugar coating?).  Our unemployment was reported higher at 5.7%.  Consider this, many loan originators who are 1099 (vs. W2) and do not qualify for unemployment may not be factored into [...]

Today President Bush signed a housing “rescue” bill HR 3221.  I’m really still absorbing all of this (I think it’s taking me a bit longer after my trip to Inman Connect).   Here are a few quick pointers:
The FHA risked base mortgage insurance pricing (which I’m in favor of) that was to be effective last week is now postponed until September [...]

It’s been tough on mortgage backed securities this week.  Today there are no economic indicators being released and compared to last week’s rates, they’re up across the board.   The Tim, from Seattle Bubble, made a special request that I show the weekly difference between posts…which I used to do with RCG Rates…which such a dramatic increase [...]

This morning began with rumors of a possible Government take over of Fannie and Freddie which caused the GSEs stocks to further tumble.  Later in the day Reuters reported that the Fed was going to open the emergency discount window to the GSE’s (Fannie/Freddie)…following that announcement, Reuters admitted that the source of this information was from a “source of a [...]

Huh?  Since tomorrow is Independence Day, the bond markets will be closed…so I thought I would provide you with mortgage rates on today.   We also had the Jobs Report released today which reported a loss of 62,000 jobs and an additional 52,000 jobs lost in April and May with unemployment remaining at a four year high at 5.5%.   [...]

While I’m still trying to figure out how to please everyone with pricing rates used in the Friday rate posts (with or without any points), since we have not had major rate changes today and because it’s the first day of summer…I’m going to give you a little treat and price rates both ways today: [...]

Rates are continuing their climb up upwards.  Helping to fuel this rise in rates, Greenspan has announced that markets are showing a “pronounced turn around” causing investors to trade the safety of bonds (such as mortgage backed securities) for stocks.   Great for stocks = bad for mortgage interest rates.   Mortgage rates are currently 0.25% higher than they were on last Friday’s [...]