Mortgage Rates Improve For a 3rd Straight Day, Nearing All-Time Lows Again

By: Matthew Graham •

Mortgages Rates continued their march into better territory today, capping a 3 day effort of improvement following Wednesday's FOMC Announcement.  At this point, rates have not only solidified their re-entry into 3.875% Best-Execution levels, but some lenders are once again competitively priced at rates below that (for detail on "best-execution," READ THIS POST). 

That said, we've seen a high degree of stratification over the past 3 days as lenders have responded to the bond market rally at different paces.  When we say that rate offerings are more stratified, we're talking about various lenders offering increasingly different rates to the same type of borrowers.  At a good handful of lenders in our survey, best-execution rates are still at 4.0%, while the bulk have moved down to 3.875%.  But a few outliers now stand at 3.75% with the leaders being quite a bit further away from the laggards than normal. 

 See Rates from Lenders in Your Area

This isn't too surprising considering the uncertainty leading up to the FOMC Announcement and the pace of the rally that followed.  Given more time to adjust, lenders will tend to get closer and closer together when underlying markets are stable and always be prone to a but of stratification when markets are on the move (especially when those moves result in shifting Best-Execution rates as opposed to simply minor changes in closing costs).  

Today's BEST-EXECUTION Rates

  • 30YR FIXED -  3.875% mostly, with a few lenders at 4.0% still, fewer still at 3.75%
  • FHA/VA -3.75%
  • 15 YEAR FIXED -  3.25% now
  • 5 YEAR ARMS -  2.625-3.25% depending on the lender

Ongoing Lock/Float Considerations

  • Rates and costs continue to operate near all time best levels
  • Current levels have experienced increasing resistance in improving much from here
  • There are technical reasons for that as well as fundamental reasons
  • Lenders tend to get busier when rates are in this "high 3's" level and can throttle their inbound volume by raising rates or costs.
  • While we don't necessarily think rates are destined to go higher, given the above facts, there seems to be more risk than reward regarding floating
  • But that will always be the case when rates operating near historic lows
  • (As always, please keep in mind that our talk of Best-Execution always pertains to a completely ideal scenario.  There can be all sorts of reasons that your quoted rate would not be the same as our average rates, and in those cases, assuming you're following along on a day to day basis, simply use the Best-Ex levels we quote as a baseline to track potential movement in your quoted rate).