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Last week, we got a sneak preview of how the market would react to Fed Chair Powell ending his term early. In a nutshell, only the shortest-term rates would improve while most consumer rates would move higher–including mortgages. This isn’t conjecture, but rather the actual response in the bond market (bonds dictate interest rates).  Thankfully, […]

Mortgage rates didn’t move much on Monday, but they moved in the right direction with the average lender 0.03% lower for a top tier 30yr fixed scenario versus last Friday.  That makes this the 4th straight business day with a modest gain and it gets us back in line with the lowest rates since July

While any rate watcher’s bingo card should always have a few squares devoted to “unchanged, flat, etc.,” this week’s had at least as many squares reserved for a big reaction to inflation data.  Specifically, Tuesday’s inflation data had the power to cause a big move in rates.  While it was the week’s biggest influence, rates

Despite all of the economic data and news headlines over the past few days, mortgage rates have barely budged since last Friday. That was not what we expected this week given the anticipation for the inflation reports that came out on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now today, a seemingly balmy Retail Sales report (something that would

This morning brought another inflation report. Given the negative reaction to yesterday’s inflation data, there was some cause for concern. Thankfully, today’s data was more unequivocally acceptable for the bond market and–thus–interest rates. Bonds improved fairly well into the late AM hours, but then, the drama! Actually, there wasn’t much drama for mortgage rates, but

Mortgage rates are based on bonds and bonds don’t like inflation.  When inflation reports are higher than the market expected, rates tend to rise, all other things being equal.   But today’s inflation numbers were a bit lower than the median forecast. This scenario is typically more likely to push rates lower.  Indeed, in the first

Today’s movement in mortgage rates, in and of itself, is barely worth mentioning.  The average lender remains close enough to Friday’s levels but is technically just a hair higher.  That fact is offset by the counterpoint that most of the past two months saw higher rates. The future is far more interesting than the present–specifically,

Yesterday, we characterized the prevailing mortgage rate momentum as “broadly sideways,” and while that’s still very true in the bigger picture, words like “up” and “higher” might need to be sprinkled in this week. For those with a glass-half-empty approach, today’s rates are the highest of the week and the highest since June 24th.  For

Most of this week’s mortgage rate movement has been an aftershock following last week’s jobs report. That data sent rates quickly higher and that momentum has gradually faded over the past few days. In fact, yesterday finally saw an improvement.  Now today, things are minimally changed, depending on the lender. Most lenders issued at least