From Mortgage Rates Newsletter.
If you thought yesterday was bad for mortgage rates, you’re probably not going to be a big fan of today either. And since today is the end of a week, we could similarly say you won’t like this week if you didn’t like the previous example. That’s been true all year so far. And hey! Those week’s add up to a month (we’ll give yesterday and today a pass and consider them to be in the first month of 2018) so we can also say if you didn’t like the last month of 2017, you’re really going to hate the first month of 2018.
So what’s going on? Nothing outside the ordinary. The only problem is that “the ordinary” has involved bond market participants looking for almost every opportunity to sell bonds, thus pushing rates higher. Today’s focal point was the big jobs report in the morning. This data traditionally packs a big punch but it hasn’t been a big market mover recently. That appeared to change today, but the rate spike had more to do with the fact that traders were intent on pushing rates higher anyway and simply waiting to make sure the jobs data didn’t throw a wrench in the works. Granted, there was no way to know this would happen before it happened, but in any event, our default stance has been to assume rates will continue higher until they give us clear evidence to the contrary. Needless to say, we’re nowhere close to amassing any such evidence after days like today.
Rates are now officially at the highest levels in more than 4 years. The average lender is in the mid 4 percent range when it comes to quoting conventional 30yr fixed rates for well-qualified borrowers.
