Mortgage Weekly Update - Last Week in Review - Improving but ending the week where they started
Foster Weeks publishes a weekly mortgage report which is updated every Monday morning. In spite of all the dire warnings on the economy of people like Greenspan and homebuilding giant, Donald Timnitz, interest rates remained low. Here in San Francisco the real estate market is beginning to look like the "old" days... multiple offers over asking price....Alan Greenspan... recently celebrated his 81st birthday by stating that the there is a 33% chance of a recession later this year. And if that weren't enough to get frightened over, a meltdown of sub-prime mortgage lenders grabbed most of the headlines.
Although 97,000 new jobs created in February is not a scary number, it was less than expectations from the Department of Labor. The Unemployment Rate did fall to 4.5%, and Average Hourly Earnings rose more than anticipated to $17.16, but fears of inflation from these numbers spooked bonds into a Friday sell-off.
Mortgage Bonds and home loan rates had been improving earlier in the week, but the overall strong economic tone of Friday's Jobs Report erased the gains that had been made, leaving rates at essentially the same place they started on Monday.
Bonds started the week off to the plus side due to investor fears about the economy, which caused money to be parked over in the "safe haven" of low-risk Bonds...thereby benefiting home loan rates. The fears were broader than the sub-prime headlines and Greenspan warning. They included evidence of economic slowdown in the US as well as China... Read more.
- Foster Weeks
posted by SFResidence.com @ 7:29 AM
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