Rates
Well, it is starting to be the same old beating drum, for 6 straight weeks now, interest rates have ticked up. We are now at a 5 month high for mortgage rates.
Many traders are talking about a pull back and a Stock Market correct of 10% or more. But I have been hearing that for about 4 weeks now and seeing nothing.
So let’s look at some of the reports from this week.
January Retail sales, were up .1%, good but not great.
Business inventories only increased 0.1% also, not great.
Jobless Claims fell 27,000 to 341,000, and the number of people receiving jobless claims declined by 130,000 to 3.11 million, which is the lowest number since 2008.
So basically the news was so-so this week, but better than bad. So that increased purchasing in stocks and people withdrew from Bonds, thus rates went up.
There was 1 minor item to watch, the EU continued into their 2nd month of a recession, which did have a little drag on EU stocks. The EU economy shrank 0.6%. Something to watch.
So moral of the story, lock those rates as soon as you can. Especially the Government Rates, VA-FHA. We are sitting in the 3.25% range, but if they jump they will jump to the 3.50% range pretty quickly.
Once again, chart above showing lots of red this week, And we broke through the "floor" of 103.25, which has set a new floor at 102.15, which would not be a nice floor to break, this would most likely cause conventional rates to go into the 4's and Govie rates to go in the 3.50's or higher.
Speaking of FHA
Don’t forget, government tax increase on FHA loans go into effect on 4/1/2013. For purchasing a home you need to have a loan application and address picked out, I would say, BEFORE 3/25/2013.
That way you can get your FHA case #, case # initiated after 4/1/13 get the tax hike.