Rates
Well another week and another bounce for rates, with rates rising higher this week due to economic news and people still putting money into the stock market.
This week we came off Janet Yellen’s comments, she replaced Bernanke on the 1st of February. She indicate that the economy is still moving along and that they are going to continue to ease the QE3 bond purchase.
While this was expected, her comments on the economy got people scratching; maybe the economy is doing better than thought.
So people dumped money into stocks and sold off bonds this week.
There was some negative economic news, but most of it was ignored, blaming it on the bad weather in the east.
Today we are higher on rates, mainly due to the long weekend, bonds are not traded on Monday, so typically we will see mortgage rates higher today as they hedge best over the weekend that we don’t bomb Iran so something like that.
Unless we see some sort of really bad economic news I think rates will start trending higher.
Next week we have quite a bit of economic news, including key Inflation readings and housing info.
Still sitting on a neutral stance but leaning towards locking, we might have seen the best rates for the year last week. Although I don’t foresee rate rising as fast as we anticipated back in December, I still expect to see rates in the low 5’s sooner rather than later.
Debt Ceiling
Well Congress passed the debt ceiling, all without any complaining or grandstanding. This would of typically be a rate mover, but alas, congress did something. Too bad each year isn’t an election year.
IHA Videos
IHA has release some REALLY great videos for Realtors and Clients as well, posting them!
UW changes
Well it is finally happening, after years and years of underwriting guidelines tightening up, we are finally seeing them loosen. Mainly due to the fact that lenders are not seeing as many loans come through, so one lender loosens up the guidelines and then the next one try to one up them.
Stuff that has come out recently:
-More and more lenders accepting FHA down to a 580 FICO score.
-Lender coming out with more and more NO or LOW MI programs.
-Lots of 100% financing programs being released, IHA’s First Loan Plus ROCKS!
-Starting to see lenders release 80/20 loan again, to avoid the MI.
-HELOC are becoming more and more available
-And SUB PRIME IS BACK! Have the client with a 550 FICO score, 1 day out of Foreclosure or Bankruptcy or Short sale, we have a loan for them!
-Bank statement loans coming back for those self-employed people.
I sense a return to 2005 underwriting coming to a Theatre near you soon!
Lead Generator
Have you ever noticed that when I send you an email, in the tag line is says “Lowest Rate”
Do you think this is just by chance? And yes we do have GREAT RATES!!!!
But it is advertising me each and every time I send an email.
And if you have a special, you can change it daily if you want.
Here is some guidance to do that:
GMAIL: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/8158?hl=en
OUTLOOK: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/change-the-display-name-that-e-mail-recipients-see-HA010079915.aspx
YAHOO: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&id=SLN22040&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1392407494810&locale=en_US&y=PROD_MAIL_ML
This will all everyone you send an email to that you have “Lowest Rates” or “Totally AWESOME Realtor”