Mortgage rates were moderately higher today, taking most lenders into slightly higher territory than yesterday or last Tuesday (the two worst days recently). Last Tuesday was the game-changer for rates, and every day since then has been in 14-month high territory--today being the worst. The best-execution rate for 30yr Fixed, Conventional loans is now likely moving into the 4.125 range, though buying down to 3.75% may make sense for some borrowers (paying extra upfront cost in exchange for a lower interest rate).
These are the times that try the souls of anyone who began the mortgage process more than a week ago today. That was the point at which things went from "right up there" in terms of losing streaks for rates to "the sharpest 5 week losses in over 10yrs." Even before garnering that unpleasant distinction, the upward movement in rates was already nauseating. There's always a temptation to think "surely, this has to stop some time," but we'd caution against such assumptions.
The problem with those assumptions is that they tend to actually be true! That's why they're dangerous, because it's the less frequent instances where they're NOT true that the most damage is done. Several instances of hitting recent multi-month highs in May have fallen into this category with the Friday the 21st being the worst.
At this point, rates for the next few days will be heavily dependent on tomorrow morning's economic data, where the ADP Employment report has a tendency to cause volatile movement if it's far outside the range of expectations, even though Friday remains the most important day of the week (and one of the most important this year). If both tomorrow and Friday are favorable for rates, we will likely recover a lot of lost ground, but if job creation is clearly stronger than expected, today's 14-month highs may look attractive by comparison.
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