Helping Washington State homeowners learn more about their mortgage options.
Happy last week of 2015! I hope you are having a wonderful holiday. I feel so fortunate that my son was able to come back for his first visit back home for a quick visit.
With New Years on Friday, we will have another short week with markets closing early on Thursday and re-opening on Monday.
I’m receiving gleeful emails from various private mortgage insurance companies announcing that mortgage insurance will once again be tax deductible. This is thanks to the PATH Act extending certain tax benefits to eligible home owners.
This is a short week with the Christmas holiday rapidly approaching. With many traders being on vacation for the holidays, we will most likely see additional volatility through the end of this year. Next week will be a short holiday week as well.
Here are some of the economic indicators scheduled to be released this week that may impact the direction of mortgage interest rates:
Loan limits for VA mortgages have been announced and, like last year, will follow the conforming loan limits. This means that VA loan limits will be higher for King County, Snohomish County and Pierce County effective 2016.
Today is “Fed Day” and it’s widely anticipated that we will see our first increase to the Fed Funds rate in years.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen is expected to announce an increase of 0.25% to the Fed Funds rate following the wrap up of today’s FOMC meeting around 11:00 PST.
Mortgage rates have been very volatile today with the Fed highly anticipated to increase the Fed Funds rate on Wednesday.
Here are some of the economic indicators that may impact the direction of mortgage rates that are scheduled to be released this week:
HUD has just announced FHA loan limits for 2016. Loan amounts were increased for King County, Pierce County, Snohomish County, Clark County and Skamania County.
All other counties have the same loan limits as they did in 2015.
2016 FHA loan limits for King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties are the same as 2016 Conforming High Balance loan limits.
Here is a complete list of FHA loan limits for all counties in Washington:
I apologize for not getting this post done yesterday as I typically do. Last week, I was in Nashville attending the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Independent Mortgage Bankers Conference. It wrapped up on Friday which gave us some time to visit with my son who currently lives there. Our flight home Sunday afternoon was cancelled, which meant my sister-in-law and I had the pleasure of spending most of yesterday on flights to get back home to Seattle. Just for fun, I thought I’d share a pic I took of Minnie Pearl’s hat and shoes, which are on display at the Ryman Auditorium, home of the original Grand Ole Opry.
Rhonda Porter is a Licensed Mortgage Originator MLO121324 living in the greater Seattle area. Rhonda began her career in 1986 in the title and escrow industry and began her mortgage career in 2000. She enjoys helping people understand the mortgage process and started writing The Mortgage Porter in late 2006. Read More…
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