Mortgage Rates Improve For 2nd Straight Day

After leveling-off yesterday Mortgage Rates saw some solid improvements today, in many cases dropping Best-Execution rates by an eighth of a point. 

Yesterday we noted that things could be volatile through the end of this week, but today that volatility worked in our favor.  The Secondary Mortgage Market opened strong, quickly weakened in choppy trading, and progressively recovered beyond the AM strength by the end of the day. 

Today's Rates: 

• BESTEXECUTION 30YR FIXED -  More evenly split between 3.875% and 4.0%
• FHA/VA - still at 3.75% !!
• 15 YEAR FIXED -  solidly back to 3.375%
• 5 YEAR ARMS -  low to mid 3% range, variations from lender to lender.

GUIDANCE:   We've let a bit more "float" creep into the guidance over the past few days as rates backed up toward the higher side of their recent range.  We view that range as 3.75-4.125% in terms of the best available 30yr fixed rates.  Those exact rates might not apply to you, but they're the barometer for the range.  2 days ago they were at the high end, 4.125% in some cases, but today, solidly back down to 4.0 and 3.875 in some cases.  This means that we're getting back into territory that is so close to the all time lows that it becomes less worth the risk to try to shave another eighth off your rate.  If the extra eighth is important to you, and you have the flexibility, we're still interested to see how markets and mortgage rates react when Fed buying starts on 10/3/11.  But as a general rule and as a hard and fast rule for anyone involved in a purchase or who can otherwise not afford to lose any ground, locking is always advised near these levels.