Mortgage Rates Essentially Unchanged to Begin The Week.

Mortgage Rates are essentially unchanged from Thursday's levels although in some cases, closing costs could be slightly higher in order to obtain the same rates.   

Many lenders' Best-Execution levels rose an eighth of a point higher in rate on Thursday, moving from 4.0 to 4.125%. 

Today's BEST-EXECUTION Rates

• 30YR FIXED -   Straddling 4.0% and 4.125%
• FHA/VA - 3.75- 3.875%
• 15 YEAR FIXED -  3.375%-3.5%
• 5 YEAR ARMS -  low 3% range, huge variations from lender to lender.

Guidance: With the uncertainty of the three day weekend behind us, we're perhaps only slightly less emphatically in support of locking early and often.  To be clear though, we still favor locking in general due to nearness to all-time lows in conjunction with the tremendous uncertainty of market movements that remain primarily motivated by headlines out of Europe.  That said, markets seem hesitant enough about buying into the "Europe is fixed!" notion that those among you who are not in an urgent need to refinance or otherwise don't mind trading risk for potential reward can continue to treat 4.25% as a "wall" of sorts.  As long as the wall holds, float until you see something you like.  But if the wall breaks, well, you're either not going to be refinancing or going to be doing so at a higher rate or cost.  Given that we're at 4.0-4.125% right now, we'd probably count the .125-.250% improvement vs the wall as good enough gain and call it a day.  Keep the pitching machine metaphor in mind from the previous guidance:

The pitching machine: Rate offerings from lenders over the past month have been like a temperamental pitching machine in a batting cage-generally getting the ball across the plate, but with no really juicy pitches.  But recently, we've seen some more consistently good pitches (best-ex around 4.0% instead of 4.25%).  Sure... you've seen better, but not by much (3.875% and RARELY 3.75%).  How many more will you count on before calling it a day?  Personally, I'd like to end my batting cage session with a nice hit.  The more "pitches" you wait for with rates already at a 4.0%, the greater the risk that the next pitch will be a curveball.  To drop the metaphor, although rates this low CAN go slightly lower, the improvements are fairly minimal compared to how much higher they could go.  Still, if you're not in any particular need to refinance and are operating on a longer-term perspective, we continue to feel good about that "wall" at a 4.25% best-execution level as a good stop-loss point for inclined floaters.  Ask us to explain more about that if it doesn't make sense.  .