Boston Massachusetts Mortgage Rate Update 3 / 24

Mortgage Market

I would suggest LOCKing in your Mortgage Rate this morning/today. Hopefully you floated thru the weekend and were able to take advantage of yesterdays mortgage market pricing for the better. Lenders are presenting borrowers with 30 year fixed rates between 4.75% and 5.125% for qualified borrowers. Qualified mortgage borrowers must have a 740 FICO score or better with a 80% loan to value. Please plan on paying standard closing costs with possibly 1 point or origination/discount. Mortgage rates will be going up later today. I am undecided on locking/floating if your closing is taken place over 45 or so days from now.

Inquire within for current mortgage rates.

Consumer mortgage borrowing costs improved a few basis points on Monday as prices of mortgage backed securities ticked higher, recapturing the price losses that occured late last week. Gains held through close, most lenders repriced better, lowering mortgage rates by .125

Economic Data

Tuesday’s bond market opened flat after yesterdays only economic data nearly matched forecasts. The stock markets showed minor gains. The bond market up from yesterday’s close, but we will still likely see an increase in mortgage rates of approximately .125 of a discount point.

The National Association of Realtors reported yesterday that sales of existing homes fell 0.6% last month, which was very close to forecasts. That indicates that the housing sector remained fairly flat last month because this data tracks approximately 85% of all home sales in the U.S.

We have two reports scheduled for release today. The first is the most important o n this week’s calendar, but is not considered to be one of the most important we see each month. The Commerce Department will release February’s Durable Goods Orders early tomorrow morning. It gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength by tracking new orders for big-ticket items, or products that are expected to last three or more years. A larger increase would be considered negative for bonds as it would indicate economic strength and could lead to higher mortgage rates today (which should happen!).

We also get the sister report to yesterdays housing data- February’s New Home sales. This report tracks sales of newly constructed homes and usually has less of an influence on bond trading and mortgage rates than today’s Existing Homes Sales report did.

Also today is the first of two relatively important Treasury auctions that may also affect bond trading enough to change mortgage rates. There will be an auction of 5-year Notes tomorrow and 7-year Notes on Thursday. Neither of these sales will directly impact mortgage pricing, but they can influence general bond market sentiment. If the sales go poorly, we could see broader selling in the bond market that leads to upward revisions to mortgage rates. Results of the sales will be posted at 1:00 PM ET each day, so look for any reaction to come during afternoon hours.

FLOAT or LOCK

If I was closing on a Home Mortgage in the next 0 to 15 Days – LOCK

If I was closing on a Home Mortgage in the next 15 to 30 Days – LOCK

If I was closing on a Home Mortgage in the next 30 to 60 Days – LOCK

If I was closing on a Home Mortgage in the next 60+ FLOAT

This is only my opinion of what I would do if I were financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.

bc@SmarterBorrowing.com 617.771.5021

Credit: Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Mortgage News, MBS Quoteline