December 6th, 2010 12:12 PM by BILL WILBANKS
Last week played Hades with the bond market and subsequently mortgage rates. This morning has started fairly stable and in fact lender points quoted appear to have eased about 25 bps. Far from the greater than 100 bps jumps last week, but it helps. Not a lot on this weeks' menu to influence rates but as proven in recent weeks it doesn't take much of a news report or rumor to kick lender pricing increases into full hill climbing gear. If you are thinking of refinancing, you need to start thinking about the risk/benefit to waiting much longer. The good news is the fact that home prices sinking so low has offset rate increases to a large extent since a .50% of $200,000 is far different than $300,000, but the negative perception must be dealt with daily by potential buyers. Weekly outlook.
End of day update: After two points adjustment today we saw a 50 bps drop on the points by close of day today, not a full recovery from last week but a nice start.