RateWatch - What Goes Down Must Come Up

Market: following last week's meltdown, we were due for move movement higher in the bond market, and we've been getting it all this week. Today we're up a modest 25bps, but that follows three out of four days of decent gains. We're not back to two weeks ago, but we're not far off it. Still at about 5.25% on the FHA, with conventional in that range as well, depending on, as you know by now, several dozen factors.

Analysis: markets are funny things. They'd be much more predictable if they weren't being operated by humans, who tend to overreact to everything. When economic data is less negative than expected, they buy things really fast, which leads to selling them equally fast when data is less positive than expected. Right now, it appears the economy is starting to bottom out, or at least the rate of descent is slowing. But it never slows in a gentle curve; there are bumps and bruises along the way. Those bumps are what we're seeing now. It's keeping rates generally down, and allowing us to lock on the dips.

Apropos of this, let me remind everyone that being able to lock your rate is a function of having a great deal of information about your loan already in the system when the opportunity presents itself. Don't be cavalier about this. Especially in the current regulatory climate, I need far more data about what we're doing with the loan than I once did. If I have it, I can lock very fast. If I don't, I can't lock at all. The best defense against losing your sought-for interest rate is to work with me to get you into a lock-ready position, then we can pull the trigger at the best time for you.

Cj

Chris Jones

City 1st Mortgage Services

801-310-3407

P.S. I just inked a contract with Scotsman Guide, one of the industry's oldest magazines, to write some articles for them. When they come out, I'll post a link, but they've accepted two articles so far, so be watching.