October 14, 2015
Monday was a holiday, so no new mortgage rate information was published, but on Tuesday after the three-day weekend (for banks, federal offices and some businesses) mortgage loan rates began moving lower. The recovery, such as it was, wasn’t enough to push rates into a new best execution range or rates–borrowers in some cases may notice the difference in closing costs rather than an actual change in the rate.
30-year fixed rate conventional mortgages were reported at, best execution, 3.875% depending on the lender. Some more competitive lenders may be offering rates below that number at the time of this writing, but much depends on the borrower’s financial qualifications and other factors. FHA mortgage loan rates are holding at a best-execution 3.5%, though it’s too early to say whether this is a new “comfort zone” for FHA mortgage loan rates.
Keep in mind that “best execution” refers to situations where the borrower is extremely well-qualified with outstanding FICO scores and other financial qualifications. The rates seen here are not available to all borrowers or from all lenders. When it comes to FHA rates in particular, you may find greater variation in the rates offered than with conventional loans.
Some industry pros are advising undecided borrowers to go with a mortgage rate lock at the moment–the rates are low at the moment, and it’s unclear whether they will remain here or if breaking news, economic data releases or other factors might put upward pressure on rates this week and erase the gains we’ve just seen.
Locking or floating is up to the borrower, but it’s never a bad idea to ask for some advice when considering your options. Speak to your loan officer and get some insight into which way he or she thinks the rates might be headed in the short term.
Do you work in residential real estate? You should know about the free tool offered by FHA.com. It’s designed especially for real estate websites–a widget that displays FHA loan limits for the counties serviced by those websites.
It is easy to spend a few seconds customizing the state, counties, and widget size for the tool; you can copy the code and paste it into your website with ease. Get yours today:
http://www.fha.com/fha_loan_limits_widget
Joe Wallace has been specializing in military and personal finance topics since 1995. His work has appeared on Air Force Television News, The Pentagon Channel, ABC and a variety of print and online publications. He is a 13-year Air Force veteran and a member of the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association. He was Managing editor for www.valoans.com for (8) years and is currently the Associate Editor for FHANewsblog.com.
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