For the sixth week in a row now, Austin mortgage rates have eased to all-time record lows, even during a week of pretty mixed housing data. Rates sit at the lowest point since Freddie began tracking it in 1971.
Austin mortgage borrowers are advised to stay a little on the defensive side until we get further confirmation that the market is headed back to those July highs
Daily studies, however, are still a bit skeptical of the strength. If we see a strong move above 123-24, hold on, we might be in for a ride to even lower Austin mortgage rates.
In what looks to be a repeat of yesterday, stocks [...]
Short term, Austin mortgage borrowers are encouragerd to stay defensive. Fast money is selling the long end of the curve, dragging the 10 year note along with it. Not a lot of downside is expected from here. The week ahead will feature Case Shiller Home Prices, Consumer Confidence, Durable Goods, Weekly Claims, and GDP on Friday.
Tuesday, June Housing Starts came in down 5.0% from May to a 549,000 annual rate. This was below expectations, but still up 15.1% from the low they hit in April 2009. Most of the drop came from volatile multi-family starts. Single-family starts were down a mere 0.7%. Most significantly, housing completions shot up 26.2% in June, the biggest monthly gain going back to the late 1960's. Builders clearly shifted focus from starting to finishing, as they pushed to close sales qualifying for the homebuyer tax credit. Finally, Building Permits were UP 2.1% for June, beating expectations, so things are looking up for the months ahead.
Just a heads up as stock traders have put a positive spin on the Euro Bank stress tests. Currently, the Dow is 90 points with financial equities having a pretty good day.
7 of 91 Euro zone banks failed the stress test. As we expected, two of the Spanish banks didn’t make the grade along with one German institution, a couple of Greek banks, and an Irish bank.
Austin Mortgage rates moved even lower during the week, as uncertainty about the pace of the economic recovery has increased investor demand for relatively safer assets such as government guaranteed mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
Today’s “big deal” will be the results of European bank stress tests, due out at 11:00 am cst. Street talk has it that the tests will show a couple of Spanish banks failed portions of the test. Others are rumored to have done ok.
