Good Afternoon on this best day of the week, Wednesday,

So sorry for the late post. The silver lining is we don’t have to guess what will happen throughout the day as we know. Matt Graham said it well.

Mortgage rates began the day with promise.  Actually, it was the underlying bond market (which largely dictates mortgage rates) was sending promising signals by apparently building on the bigger improvements seen on Tuesday.  This is exactly what mortgage lenders needed in order to feel comfortable setting rates at even lower levels.

Unfortunately, not long after the day began, bonds started losing ground.  For more than a few lenders, the intraday losses were enough to prompt mid-day reprices (meaning that the initially-offered mortgage rates were replaced by slightly weaker terms).  

A mid-day reprice may or may not be a big deal depending on your perspective.  In most cases, the “note rate” for your mortgage quote will remain the same and only the upfront costs will change.  In even less threatening cases, lenders simply eat the difference as it’s not worth the operational trouble of an official rate change.  Today’s version was on the less threatening end of the spectrum, but nonetheless reinforces the recent sideways momentum in rates and argues against a friendly break toward a lower range.

The WSJ shared a sobering piece… Americans last year saw their first significant decline in household income in nearly a decade. An annual assessment of the nation’s financial well-being, released by the Census Bureau, showed median household income was about $67,500 in 2020, down 2.9% from the prior year, when it hit an inflation-adjusted historical high. It came as the U.S. last year saw millions lose their jobs and national unemployment soar from a 50-year low to a high of 14.8%. The last time median household income fell significantly was 2011, in the aftermath of the 2007-09 recession.

Please remain safe and healthy, make today great.