Rates

 Well rate slide over the last couple of days, after the Speaker of the House couldn't even muster enough votes to bring his Fiscal Cliff solution to the floor of the House.

Stocks tanked for the last 2 days, which has improved Mortgage rates as people dump Stock money and buy safe Bonds.

The stock/bond market has totally ignored all the good economic data which has been released, and focused strictly on the Fiscal Cliff.

It looks like right now, we are going over, since Congress is going to recess until Thursday of next week..

I suspect rate will hold steady next week, but watch out for the week after.

The week of 31-4th will be interesting because Fiscal Cliff talks will continue to go on, but unemployment numbers will be released on the 4th.

Unemployment numbers will be the #1 economic report to watch, due to the fact that the Federal Reserve has indicate that they will quit helping low rates when the unemployment number gets to 6.50%.

This is pretty significant because it actually puts a number on rates, so as we get closer and closer to the 6.50%, we will see rate slowly climb.

I suspect we will see the 4's in rate in the 2nd 1/2 of 2013.

FHA tax increase.

Well looks like Senate Bill 3678 will take FHA to a whole new level.

Upfront MI will go from 1.75% to 2.05%

Monthly MI will go from 1.25% to 1.35%

AND, the big kicker, is homeowner's will NOT be able to get rid of FHA MI after 5 years, they will keep it on the loan for the life of the loan, or until they refinance into a conventional loan.  Sucks!

Legislative Agenda

I am going to start posting important legislative bills, as the relate to our industry to the right side.  I encourage you to read them and submit you VOICE.

The current bill S3047, would allow people with a Bond loan to refinance under the HARP program, which at this point in time, they are unable to refinance.