Rates
Well we can pretty much say good bye to low rates, over the last 3 weeks rates have started slow climb upwards. Over the last 3 weeks, rates have been steidly climbing, not by huge amount, just tenths and hundreds of points, but still climbing. And here is why:
Well first of all, the European Union seems to have fixed the Greece Issue, by giving them $119 Billion Euros. So the short tem potential of them defaulting has been resolved. But the long term potential is still there. We will see Greece come up again in the Fall and in 2013.
Then it also looks like the other PIIGS are trying to pick up the pieces and there is no current issues, but that could change next month.
So which the EU is fixed, most investors have been focusing on the US Economy, and what an economy it has been in the last month.
All economic news has been from good to GREAT:
NAR reported that Pending homes sales for Feb was up 0.5%.
March Consumer Confidence up again to 70.1 (remember me saying way, way back, it was going to take this to be in the 70's for the US to come out of this recession)
Feb durable goods order was up 2.2%.
Jobless Claims were down -5,000
Q4 GDE was +3.0%
Michigan consumer sentiment made a huge jump from 74.3 to 76.2.
So you can see by this 3 month chart of the 10 year Treasury Bond, that it's rates have slowly been rising, and although there is no direct corlation between the 10 year and Interest rates, they to trend to follow each other.
The outlook by the talking heads is rates will continue to rise as the US economy continues to improve. I suspect, we will see the end of the high 3% in about 30-45 days, and by mid to end of summer, as they are trending now, rates will probably be in the low to mid 4's.
Wild Cards:
1-Gas prices, if gas continues to rise, that would put a damper on the economy.
2-Italy and Portugal, the PIIGS could raise their heads and start the stampede towards default.
3-China, they are having quite a bit of growing pains over there, and how their economy is set up, Communisium just isn't working for them.
The Perfect Storm:
What a time to be a seller of a home, thought you would never hear that again, well it is true!
Some information I have received:
I have talked with 3 of my most popular builders, they have all sold more homes in the last 45 days that then did ALL OF LAST YEAR!
Construction times have gone from 60 days to 4-6 months!
I have 2 clients right now that their Real Estate Agents CAN NOT FIND a home for them!
In speaking with "people in the know" they all feel that as of February 28th, the market has switched from a Buyer's Market to a Seller's market.
2 builder which I have worked with, in the last 2 weeks, have both increased their prices between $3,000 to $8,000 or more. And the reason for that...Because they can!
In speaking with title people, the phantom inventory is GONE, there is none out there, all home are on the market.
SO GREAT NEWS, Go sell a home!
HARP 2.0
Well we have been working on the HARP 2.0 program for 2 weeks now. This is the program that allows anyone with a Fannie or Freddie loan to refinance with negative equity, with out having to do an appraisal.
And the Results are:
It has been a GREAT success, 90% of the people who we have been getting application on have been successful, with 99.9% of them getting appraisal waivers.
It seems the only ones that are not getting approved are:
People having a Bankruptcy in the last 48 months.
People with low FICO scores
People with Debt to income over 45%
FHA loan fees increasing:
Don't forget, on April 9th, FHA is increasing all of their loan fees, significantly! you have to have a FHA case number BEFORE 4/6/2012 (that is a Friday), or you are going to pay about $30 per month more per $100,000 borrowered! See past blogs for more info.