MLS Real Estate & Listings Blog

Mortgage rates rose slightly this week, the lowest-fee 30-year from just below 6 percent to a hair above. Spreads still gape versus Treasurys, at 2.5 percent above the 10-year defying all of the Fed’s latest efforts. Five-year ARMs, both conforming and jumbo, are better in availability and rate, but both are scarcer and higher than in January.

The economy itself is in a curious place. This morning’s report of a half-percent gain in February personal income was head-scratching good news, not squaring with consumer confidence measures at 16-year lows, some components at 41-year all-time lows.  more…

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Some progress this week by the authorities has helped mortgage rates fall to the 5.75 percent area for the first time since January. However, the improvement is limited to vanilla "agency" loans, the jumbo and even agency ARM markets still broken. The credit crunch is still alive, growing tighter, and the financial system is unstable.  more…

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The collapse of Bear Stearns this morning has pulled the 10-year Treasury yield to 3.42 percent, but lowest-fee mortgages are still stuck above 6 percent. Mortgage improvement was inhibited by fire sales elsewhere (Thornburg and Carlyle), and by Bear’s mortgage exposure, the Street’s largest. As one of the Fed’s 20 "primary dealers," Bear has received instant bailout, but its mortgage portfolio still overhangs the market.  more…

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Mortgage rates spiked to 6.75 percent on Wednesday, only today sliding back into the 6.5 percent range (these rates with no loan fees). There is good reason to expect rates to fall back, and maybe a long way, but only in the context of effective intervention by federal authorities.  more…

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