Real Estate News & Tips for Central Texas
Mortgage Rates Start Higher, But Fall After Economic Data
The Federal Reserve is far from the only game in town when it comes to exerting influence on interest rates. That's a loaded statement, of course, considering we spent last week explaining why mortgage rates often go the opposite direction from a Fed rate cut/hike. True to form, ra
Mortgage Rates Move Slightly Higher to Start New Week
Mortgage rates rose modestly last week after hitting long term lows before the Fed announced its 0.50% rate cut. In not so many words, mortgage rates had already gotten in position for that cut and were thus left to undergo a mild correction. The new week threatens to extend that corrective mo
The Wild Week That Wasn't
Credit where credit is due: the rate market did an outstanding job of getting out in front of the Fed rate cut as well as the changes to the Fed's rate cut outlook as communicated in the summary of economic projections (SEP). The SEP contains the proverbial "dot plot" that shows each Fed
Mortgage Rates Are Actually HIGHER This Week
Today's release of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey took at bad problem and made it worse. Freddie's survey methodology means that today's reported rate is an average of the 5 days leading up to yesterday. The first few days in that time frame indeed saw the lowest rates in m
Yes! Mortgage Rates Really Did Move HIGHER After The Fed Rate Cut
We publish daily coverage of mortgage rate movement and have done so for nearly 20 years now. It's a great place to quickly check in on rate trends and to get a sense of what's true and what matters. If you'd been checking in at any point in the past few days/weeks, you likely saw one of
What Might a Fed Rate Cut do For Mortgage Rates?
Mortgage rates have fallen nearly 2% from last year's peak. Much of that decrease can be viewed as the normal phenomenon of longer term rates getting in position for changes in short term rates. The point we're about to make is that mortgage rates have already adjusted for what the Fed i
Mortgage Rates Inch Lower to Begin Potentially Wild Week
The new week began on a relatively quiet note in terms of mortgage rate movement and the underlying bond market. There was modest volatility earlier this morning with a Manufacturing survey causing some headwinds for bonds. This would normally lead to slightly higher mortgage rates
Low Volatility in Mortgage Rates, But Next Week Could be Very Different
We've talked a lot about why the Fed rate cut will have no additional positive impact on mortgage rates next week. Everything the market can already reasonably foresee about what the Fed might do is already reflected in today's mortgage rates. In other words, much of the sharp mortgage rate de
Mortgage Rates Move Slightly Higher For First Time This Month
While it's true that there have only been 8 business days so far this month, it's also true that today is the only one of the 8 where mortgage rates haven't been lower than the previous day for the average lender. That's the bad news. The good news is that today's increase was modest. In