FNMA 4% mortgage bond LOST 25 bps...profit taking very likely to blame along with some positive job market and financial news leading to money movement into the stock market. 30 year fixed rates still in the 4.75%-ish range but may come up slightly tomorrow.
The Initial Jobless Claims report shows that 611,000 people last week filed for unemployment. This is a HUGE number compared to "normal"...but numbers that big have become the norm unfortunately. PERSPECTIVE: analysts were expecting the number to come in around 664,000! When numbers come in better than expected...this is good news. Continuing claims however are at 6.02 million...yow.
Home STARTS are still low. Home starts measure HOLES DUG IN THE GROUND to give us an idea of the inventory that will be hitting the markets nationwide. If starts stay low: we will begin to "soak up" some excess inventory and this helps stabilize the market.
Remember good old "Supply VS Demand?" WE have had an oversupply of housing nationwide because demand had been greatly reduced. Reduced demand was/is due to economic worries many "would be" buyers have been experiencing and the removal of exotic loan products in our industry.
It was all the "don't ask don't tell" loans that actually created "buyers" out of many people who wouldn't otherwise have qualified. This flooded the market with "demand" in the form of buyers.
DOW is UP 95 points in part due to better than expected JP Morgan numbers. We may see a little spike in the morning as well due the the release of better than expected numbers from Google.
Just as with the initial jobless report above: it is the "expectation" that is most important.
When performance is better than or worse than expectation: the markets react.
Purchase POWER: Feds purchased a cool $21.7 BILLION in Mortgage Backed Securities last week.
DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE PARTS OF YOUR TOWN THAT ARE CONSIDERED ELIGIBLE FOR THE RURAL DEVELOPMENT LOANS PROGRAM? Rural development loans finance up to 100% of the APPRAISED VALUE of a property being purchased by a qualified buyer. This means that we can actually FINANCE more than the purchase price to include closing cost if the appraisal comes in HIGH.
To see some more info check out the link below. (As a local Example: a subdivision named "Alder Creek" is not considered "Rural" but most of that area qualifies for rural development loans.)
Click: http://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov/eligibility/welcomeAction.do?NavKey=home@1
Have a great day,
