Helping Washington State homeowners learn more about their mortgage options.
Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey was released this morning revealing that conventional mortgage rates have remained below four percent for the past twelve week. The PMMS reports that average rate for the 30 year fixed last week was 3.82% with an average of 0.6 points.
If you are considering buying or refinancing a home located in Washington state, I’m happy to provide you with a rate quote.
Happy Columbus Day!
Bond markets are closed today so I will not be posting rates this week (at least, not today). However, I will share some of the economic indicators scheduled to be released this week that may impact the direction of mortgage interest rates:
Effective for new applications on October 5, 2015 and later, the “Good Faith Estimate” was replaced by CFPB’s “Loan Estimate”. This document is similar to HUD’s 2010 Good Faith Estimate (GFE) as it makes the lender be accountable for the Loan Estimate provided to the consumer. It must be delivered within a certain time period, upon specific circumstances and may only be re-issued upon specific circumstances (aka “a changed circumstance”). Similar to the retired 2010 GFE, the Loan Estimate has varying levels of “tolerance” as to how much certain fees are permitted to change from when the Loan Estimate was issued to closing. The lender may be responsible for fees that exceed the allowed tolerance.
USDA has increased the upfront funding fee (aka “upfront guarantee fee”) by an additional 0.75 percent as of October 1, 2015. From USDA:
On October 1, 2015 the upfront guarantee fee for purchase and refinance loans will increase from 2 percent to 2.75 percent. The annual fee will remain at 0.50 percent for purchase and refinance loans. This change is necessary to maintain the program’s operational cost structure, which requires no congressional subsidy support to offset credit costs.
We don’t have a lot of economic indicators scheduled to be released this week. We do have the Seahawks on Monday Night Football!!!
It is hard to believe that it was just five years ago when HUD created and required the use of their uniform Good Faith Estimate, often referred to as the 2010 GFE. HUD was very proud of this achievement despite obvious flaws with the document, including (and not limited to) no total monthly mortgage payment (PITI), no total funds due for closing and lenders having to disclose costs that the borrower did not have to pay (such as the owners title policy). The 2010 GFE, which was created to help borrowers shop lenders, was also severely flawed because a lender could not issue the GFE with having a “TBD” address for home shoppers. There was no wiggle room for lenders to re-issue the GFE to add an address.
Mortgage rates have been a little bouncy lately and remain very low. There has been a lot of “Fed speak” following last week’s Fed meeting with various flip flopping commentary on when the Fed Funds rates may be raised. This Friday we will have the Jobs Report, which tends to impact mortgage interest rates. Today, the Dow closed down 312 points today at 16,001.
Here are some of the economic indicators scheduled to be released this week:
In Seattle’s competitive real estate market, we’re seeing offers coming in with shorter closing times, appraisals waived or even financing waived. It’s not unusual for me to have a Real Estate Broker say “the offer has been accepted, you can order the appraisal now!” I recently had a Real Estate Broker from Seattle ask an excellent question:
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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