Acceleration in U.S. growth and rising energy costs will likely translate into higher long-term [interest] rates. |
Even with rising mortgage rates over the last four weeks, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates remain an historical bargain. To date, contract rates for these mortgages have been below 6 percent for 31 weeks in a row, and we don't expect these rates will rise very much above 6-1/4 percent by year end. |
Every once in a while the bond market does believe Greenspan. |
Expecting job growth on the order of about 150,000 in December, financial markets were taken aback, to say the least, when those figures came in at only a thousand new jobs. |
Interest-only and option payment loans had been ways to afford homes in expensive markets. Now even, these products will no longer be attractive. That will impact affordability. |
It is something that we are paying attention to very closely. |
Last Friday's unexpectedly weak employment report caused interest rates on long-term Treasury bonds and, by extension mortgage rates, to fall as investors worried about the health of the U.S. economy. |
Lower figures for the recently released producer price index and consumer price index and lower, but still strong, gross domestic product combined with the seasonal slowdown in the housing market led to another decline in mortgage rates this week. |
Lower figures for the recently released producer price index and consumer price index and lower, but still strong, gross domestic product, combined with the seasonal slowdown in the housing market, led to another decline in mortgage rates this week. |
Lower figures for the recently released producer-price index and consumer- price index, and lower but still strong gross domestic product, combined with the seasonal slowdown in the housing market led to another decline in mortgage rates this week. |
Lower figures for the recently released producer-price index and consumer-price index, and lower but still strong gross domestic product, combined with the seasonal slowdown in the housing market led to another decline in mortgage rates this week. |
Refinancing activity was very strong in the fourth quarter, even with higher interest rates. The large share of borrowers who took cash out when refinancing their mortgages combined with the strong overall refinance volume led to an extraction of home equity through prime first-lien refinances of $70.3 billion, slightly higher than the revised estimate of $67.2 billion extracted in the third quarter. We expect the share of all refinance borrowers who take out cash to remain high in 2006 because of the relatively high cost of second mortgages and home-equity lines of credit. |
Shrugging off statements by the Fed last week, mortgage rates remained relatively more stable than bond market yields. Without a key indicator that would move it one way or another, the financial market is in something of a state of limbo. |
The 30-year [fixed-rate mortgage] came in under 6 percent for the last 22 weeks of this year. As a matter of fact, mortgage rates in 2004 averaged around 5.84 percent, the second lowest annual rate ever recorded in the history of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. |
The bond markets got a little ahead of themselves, causing yields to rise too quickly over the past few weeks. This week saw a bit of a correction and mortgage rates fell for the first time in eight weeks. Continued volatility in financial markets, however, will keep rates teetering up and down for some time to come. |