Mortgage Rates Completely Flat After Today's Jobs Data

By: Matthew Graham •

Today's headline is a bit of a play on Yesterday's: Mortgage Rates Completely Flat Ahead of Tomorrow's Jobs Data.  The monthly Employment Situation Report is almost always the single largest motivator of market movement of all the domestic economic reports.  As such, we tend to see definite movement in Mortgages Rates.

But today broke the mold.  For the first time, the average Best-Execution Rate for 30yr Fixed Conventional loans was completely unchanged on a Jobs Report day.  3.875% remains intact for the more aggressive half of the market and 4.0% for the other half. (read more about Best-Execution calculations).

Markets also digested important news out of Europe regarding the participation rate in restructuring of Greece's government debt.  That was a dud too...  As we said yesterday, 

 See Rates from Lenders in Your Area

"high risk events" don't mean the market will necessarily move in one direction or another, simply that greater potential exists for larger-than-average movements.  Sometimes things just end up going sideways too... 

It's all a bit anticlimactic to hold out for the possibility of more volatile movement in rates only to have them stay exactly the same.  Should we then infer that markets will be more stable in general?  More "immune" from market drama?  While a case continues to build for a new "wall," preventing Best-Execution rates from moving above a 3.875% to 4.0% range, we won't know how long it will last until AFTER it's been torn down.  In that sense, it pays to balance caution with optimism, and of course, to stay informed on potential threats to the wall. 

Today's BEST-EXECUTION Rates

  • 30YR FIXED -  balanced between 3.875% and 4.0%
  • FHA/VA -3.75%
  • 15 YEAR FIXED -  3.25%
  • 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).