First Time Home Buyers
Home buyers dodged a bullet last week. We traded nearly flat all week until Friday’s jobs report fell well short of expectations and triggered a rate rally.
Conforming and FHA mortgage rates dropped for the fifth time in six weeks and, once again, rates are trolling back near all-time lows.
Here is what “all-time lows” means: It means that we’re at a level that we have seen four times in the past 19 months. In TOTAL, rates stayed there for a whopping total of 4.5 days.
- November 2008 : Roughly 90 minutes
- March 2009 : Roughly 6 hours
- May 2009 : Roughly 1 day
- May 2010 : Roughly 3 hours
When rates are at these levels, it is anyone’s guess if they’ll stay low for minutes, hours, or days. No one knows. There is no major data due for release this week which means that the markets will get their lead from trading activity. More specifically, trader sentiment. Sentiment is a mess. It’s more emotion than logic. Whereas logic is predictable and balanced, trader sentiment is like tracking a specific ice cube in the blender. Good luck.
The calendar is sort of light this week, but here’s what we’re watching:
- Monday: Consumer credit, a critical piece of consumer spending
- Wednesday : The Beige Book, a regional economic report from the Fed
- Thursday : Initial and continuing jobless claims
- Friday : Retail Sales and the Consumer Sentiment report
If you’re still not locked in, consider making your move. Rates have a lot farther to rise than they do to fall.
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