Tag Archives: Mortgage Rates

Housing market conditions remained fragile despite numerous initiatives put forward by the Obama administration, according to a recent scorecard released Thursday by HUD and the Treasury Department. The administration cited numerous industry-respected analytics sources and painted a helpful portrait of the homeownership and refinance endeavors it has made possible. Sources polled for the government gauge of housing and economic health included CoreLogic and Standard & Poor's, among others.

Mortgage rates either stayed the same or plunged to record lows, depending on where market watchers obtained their news Thursday. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac and personal finance Web site Bankrate.com released separate figures, with the former seeing a static 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and the latter finding a new bottom for the benchmark loan. The 30-year loan went bottoms up, according to Bankrate.com, which posted a 4.37-percent low, down from 4.41 percent from the week earlier.

Delivering highly anticipated remarks in Wyoming Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke promised no new stimulus measures, opting instead to offer an optimistic view of fundamental strength of the economy, coupled with a blistering critique of fiscal management by policymakers and an overview of the housing sector. In response to his speech, Treasury bonds rose, forcing a downward shift in yields and likely mortgage rates for next week, following continuing fiscal distress.

After beaching on a 50-year low last week, mortgage rates posted mixed results this week, either raising costs for mortgage borrowers or lowering costs. Weekly surveys by Freddie Mac and Bankrate disagreed with each other about the benchmark 30-year loan, with the GSE posting spikes and the company showing declines to new lows. No matter which rates went up and down, analysts said in past interviews that borrowers are unlikely to return to the market. According to Freddie, the 30-year loan jumped from 4.15 percent to 4.22 percent.

Even as economic uncertainty and fears of a double-dip recession continue to rile the markets, some say that commercial mortgage-backed securities, recently on a downdraft, could either slowly recover over 2011 or see a fallback. According to experts, ongoing concerns about debt crises overseas and at home could dent a rebound for the CMBS markets. Stories by Bloomberg News, Retail Traffic magazine, coupled with data from Trepp Inc. and Barclays Capital, portray gray skies for CMBS.

Cresting on low tides in credit supply and buyer confidence, fewer first-time and repeat homebuyers filed mortgage applications last week, according to a weekly survey released by the Mortgage Bankers Association Wednesday. The MBA said that overall mortgage loan application volume dropped 2.4 percent, with purchases slamming into a 15-year low. The Market Composite Index, which the MBA uses to gauge loan application activity, showed a seasonally adjusted squeeze in loan volume.

Mortgage rates continued falling to new lows, according to real estate Web site Zillow, which released rates in the latest Mortgage Marketplace note Tuesday. According to Zillow, the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate loan jumped four basis points to hit 4.07 percent Saturday, up from 4.09 percent last week. Zillow tracks mortgage rates by pooling anonymous loan quotes submitted by the 1.7 million users that it says follow its Web site on a daily basis. The Zillow rates track ongoing mortgage-rate declines reported by Bankrate and Freddie Mac.

While the economy at large and market skewer, loan volume origination may ride a wave of refinance applications and low mortgage rates into 2011, according to a forecast by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Mortgage rates slammed into a 50-plus-year low Thursday, reflecting continuing concerns over European sovereign debt crises, the potential for defaults overseas, and an overall economic slowdown. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac posted a 4.15-percent average for 30-year fixed-rate loans, racing past the record 4.17-percent drop it registered in 2010. Citing the same reasons for new lows, Bankrate followed suit by revealing declines in fixed-rate mortgages for a third straight week. The rates continue on fears of a recession.

If two professors at Columbia Business School have anything to say about it, 30 million homeowners across the country would refinance their mortgages and stabilize the lagging housing market in the process. The duo recently proposed the refi boom in a paper that aimed to prop up sagging home prices and accelerate job growth nationally. The academes, R. Glenn Hubbard and Chris Mayer, propose reducing mortgage rates by about one percent to encourage a boost in home prices and the housing recovery.