Existing Home Sales Rise for Third Straight Month:
It’s starting to sound like a broken record but we keep getting more and more positive news about the housing market.
The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes increased at a faster-than-expected annual pace. Existing home sales increased at a 3.6% rate and had its third straight monthly gain.
This is the first time since early 2004 that we have had three straight months of increasing sales and points to the housing market continuing to heat up. They also reported that inventories of existing homes were down 0.7%. With inventories declining and home sales increasing, now is the time to jump into the market before these artificially low home prices are history.
What happened to rates last week:
We had a slight gain in mortgage backed securities last week which helped to keep mortgage rates low. But we did have another roller coaster week for rates. 30 year fixed mortgage rates dropped dramatically from Monday to Wednesday. This was mostly in reaction to comments made by Ben Bernanke that were somewhat anti-inflationary. But by the time consumers could react, we gave up all of those gains by Friday. This reversal was due to Thursday’s positive Initial Jobless Claims and Existing Homes Sales reports.
I know people are busy and it is virtually impossible for you to keep track of what is going on in the economy. I monitor the trading of Mortgage Backed Securities; the only thing conventional mortgage rates are based upon. So I know if there is going to be a trend reversal in mortgage rates.
Call on me anytime for an industry update.
Respectfully,
Dave Campagna
408-754-3846
dave@plazaloans.com
