Real Estate News & Tips for Central Texas
Mortgage Rates Back to Highest Levels in a Week
It's been a bummer of a week for mortgage rates with modest to moderate increases every day so far. Adding insult to injury is the fact that there hasn't been any compelling reason for the increase as far as this week's new economic data is concerned. Economic data is a constant consideration
Mortgage Rates Started Lower, But Ended Higher
Mortgage rates were having a pretty decent day at first. The bond market was only slightly weaker overnight (implies some upward pressure on rates), but quickly improved after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data at 8:30am ET. Notably, CPI was right in line with forecasts--something that
Mortgage Rates Moving Back Up
Between November 18th and December 6th, the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate moved down from 7.08 to 6.68. A 0.40% drop is rather significant, especially over the course of only 3 weeks. Over the past 2 days, however, we've lost a quarter of that improvement. Today saw rates inc
Mortgage Rates Slightly Higher to Start New Week
Mortgage rates ended last week with an impressive drop to the lowest levels in more than a month and a half. Today's rates ended up being the 2nd lowest over that time after the average lender moved to just slightly higher levels to start the new new week. Top tier conventional 30yr fixe
Mortgage Rates Fall More Than Expected After Jobs Report
As of last week, rates were showing some signs of resilience, but they had to wait for the true test from this week's jobs report. Spoiler alert: they passed the test. It wasn't that the headline job count was particularly low, but it wasn't strong enough to argue against the fact that the labo
Mortgage Rates Little Changed Ahead of Big Jobs Report
It's been a remarkably calm week for mortgage rates, and a fairly decent one relative to several recent examples. The average top tier 30yr fixed rate hovered just over 7% for most of November before breaking back into the high 6% range at the beginning of last week. Since then, there ha
Mortgage Rates Start Higher, But End Lower
Mortgage lenders generally try to avoid setting rates more than once per day, but they will make changes if the underlying bond market is moving enough. Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) are the bonds that directly dictate mortgage rate movement. When they're stronger/higher, it implies d
Living In Central Texas - Cedar Fever
What is Cedar Fever? I've lived in Texas and never neard of this! Primarily "Cedar Fever" is in Central Texas - along I-35 to the west, it's the release of cedar pollen during mountain cedar season. Residents often describle a visible yellow and orange clouds of pollen that coats driveways, cars,
Mortgage Rates Lower on Average, But Timing Matters
The bond market is the primary driver of mortgage rate movement and normally, "weakness" equates to higher rates. Bonds are slightly weaker today compared to yesterday afternoon, but mortgage rates nonetheless managed to move lower. What gives? Timing is partly to blame. Bonds may
