Today is a great day if you are trader on Wall Street or anyone that is following the overall economy as we have received several reports in the past 24 hours that indicates that we are pulling out of the recession! JP Morgan posted profits that simply blew the projections out of the water, because a mini sell off of Mortgage Back Securities. Simply put, as the stock market looks more attractive to investors they will sell their safer bonds for higher reward stocks.
To entice those investors back to MBSs we will see the bank raise their rates so the return for the investors is more attractive.
There was also a report release from the Mortgage Bankers Association that indicate that bases on the economy and where we are heading that they believe that rates are going to hold around 5% for the rest of the year, and then in 2010 we could see a slow climb up to around 5.5%. Now if you are looking at the low point we hit a while back of 4.5% you might say that those are really high, but as my father likes to remind me, “when your mother and I bought our first house we had an 18% rate, and were so happy when we refinanced it down to 16%!”. Great mortgage rates are very relative to where you are in life!
We are now pretty much at the end of qualifying for the First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit, as you will need 30-45 days to close a loan and the deadline is November 30th. That means you need to have your deal closed on the 30th, not a “cute house” picked out by then. We will post any updates that we hear concerning an extension or modification to the tax credit, similar to the one we talked about yesterday for active military personal.
We are defiantly of the opinion that today is a day to lock and not float!