Category: Interest Rates
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Rosy Outlook For Housing
Fannie Mae has revised its housing and economic forecasts higher almost every month since mid-summer. Its report this week was even more upbeat. The company’s economists boosted their 2021 GDP prediction 1.2 percentage points to 4.5% saying, “We continue to believe that the conditions for a continued, strong recovery are present once the limiting factors…
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Why Not Better?
One economist can’t understand why housing sales aren’t doing better. Two others say things will change for the better any minute now. This week there was support for both views as home prices continued to slow and both pending home sales and interest rates fell again. David M. Blitzer, Managing Director and Chairman of the…
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They Finally Did It!
The Fed raised rates…and having done it, apparently may do it again. The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) ended their monthly meeting on Wednesday with an announcement of a quarter point increase in the federal funds rate. This brings the target for the overnight lending rate between banks–to a range of 0.5% to…
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Potent Cocktail
November was another good month for jobs with 178,000 new ones created and unemployment dropping to 4.6%. The bad news was that after an encouraging 0.4% gain in October, average hourly wages dropped back by 0.1%. Flat wages are not hurting home prices–at least so far. They continue to defy forecasts of smaller increases.…
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Mortgage Rates Spike
The bond market went a little crazy last week, and mortgage rates followed. By Monday of this week most lenders were quoting 4.0% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM). The market calmed a bit midweek, and by Thursday Freddie Mac reported a slight easing to 3.94 %. The speed of the increase was close to…
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Rates Rise
Why wait until the last minute? Several members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors sounded more amenable to higher interest rates late last week so the markets apparently decided to get ahead of the game. While the next decision point on a Fed Funds rate hike won’t be until next week, mortgage and bond rates…
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Lollipops and Roses
Commentary — March 11, 2016 Although interest rates appear to have reversed direction and are headed back up (and yes, we have said this before) Black Knight Financial Services put some real world meaning to that unexpected New Year gift of declining rates. The company estimates that the six-week 30 basis point drop potentially…
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Diving Interest Rates
Commentary ~ February 12, 2016 Interest rates dominated economic news again as the Mortgage Brokers Association reported that, by the end of last week most fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) had fallen back to spring 2015 levels while the 30-year jumbo FRM had an average rate last seen in the spring of 2013. The retreat continued this…
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Rates, Prices and Hat Tricks
Commentary ~ January 29, 2016 This week the Federal Open Market Committee held its first meeting since they raised the fed funds rate. In its news conference after the two day event a spokesperson said they were closely monitoring both global and domestic economic developments and “assessing their implications for the labor market and inflation.” …
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Anti-climatic
Commentary ~ December 18, 2015 They finally did it and no one was the least bit surprised. At their two day meeting that ended Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FMOC) took the step they have been teasing markets with for months and raised the fed funds rate by a quarter…