Rates
Holy Rates Batman!
Well new week, new worries, and rates have slide down again, and quite a bit. On April 2nd rates were trending to their highest levels of 2014, with Conventional Rates ticking towards the 4.75% mark.
Since then rates have improved EVERY DAY, and we are now trending towards the 4.125% mark, with Conventional today hanging around the 4.25% mark.
Now or course that is for the most perfect borrower, but still we are seeing quite a nice improvement in rates, so why.
Well for a couple of reasons:
1-The big one is because some talking heads are saying that the US Stock Markets are due for a correction, so since then the money has been flowing out of stocks and into bonds, thus improving rates.
2-There is still a little geo political uneasiness with Russia, potentially going to take over all of Ukraine. If Russian troops do move into Ukraine proper, we will look for rates to dramatically decline, and EU stocks sell off and the money is put into US bonds.
3-China, we are starting to see a slowdown in Chinese Economy, and although China isn’t a huge economic power, it still has 3 billion people, and some of those people do buy items.
Economic news for the week:
-Wholesale inventories .05 vs est of .05, no impact on rates
-US auctioned off $30B of our debt on Tuesday, Sold well.
-US auctioned off $21B of our debt on Wednesday, sold well.
-US auctioned off $13B of our debt on Thursday, was good
-Consumer Sentiment 82.6 vs est of 81.0 good number
If US economic data was in play this week, interest rates would of rose.
The talking heads are stating that we are seeing a direct correlation between the stock market and the bond market, so more stock sell off, the more bonds will be purchased, thus declining the mortgage rates.
I am still sitting on a neutral stance, leaning towards floating right now for those gamblers. Gambling has paid off in the last week, and we have seen some nice improvements in rates, but not huge improvements. Remember, a .125 improvement on a $100,000 loan is only $7.29 difference in payment or $2624.50 over a 30 year loan. So not too much to sweat about. More mental for people than financial.
New Good Faith Estimate/TIL/Closing HUD-1
So let it begin, the countdown to Chaos 2015.
On August 1, 2015, lenders/title companies/Realtors will have to start using the new GFE/TIL and HUD-1.
As the year progresses I will keep you updated, but make sure you stay tuned. These forms are DRAMATICALLY changing and will be adding confusion to our industry.
I do believe that the forms are better than what we have right now.
But the biggest issue I see is that buyers will HAVE A 3 DAY WAITING PERIOD between when they sign the docs and when it can fund and record.
The info is a little vague right now, but this is how most lenders are reading the new law. No more same day funding’s!
Lead Generator
I was at a mixer yesterday and notice quite a bunch of Realtors were wearing their name tags, this was GREAT! And it goes along with the Lead Generator I published last week.
BUT…
Name tags are good if you can read them. I noticed that some of the Realtors names were quite small and you couldn’t read them from a distance.
And some Realtors name tags had a lot of other info on there, and was confusing to read.
So Name Tag Etiquette :
1-Place on the Right Side
2-First and Last Name, very clear
3-Colors between the name and the background should contrast
4-Keep it simple, too much clutter will cause confusion.
5-You have less than 2 seconds for them to read the name tag, if you have lots of info on it, they won’t get to your name.
6-Wear IT!
So take your name tag, place it 8’ from where you are standing and read it. Just like you would do with an eye doctor. And then critique from there.