Mortgage Interest rates decline for the week ending 10/12/19

Mortgage interest rates for buying a home on the Palos Verdes Peninsula declined this week ending 10/12/19. The following are excerpts from the newsletter on interest rates published by HSH Associates :

” Over the last few weeks, there certainly have been plenty of items to inject various forms of risk into financial markets. Aside from those we already knew, including poor global growth, weak inflation and an ever-fractious Brexit process, new items to add to the pile include a presidential impeachment inquiry, a new North Korean missile tactic and the imposition of new tariffs on certain Eurozone products. These items are of course a matter of concern for investors, but as long as the U.S. economic train keeps chugging along the chances for things to work out (at least financially) were pretty good.

Applications for new mortgages kicked higher in the week ending September 27 as both homebuyers and homeowners moved back in to the market with the fall in rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association of America noted that overall applications rose by 8.1% for the week, taking back much of a week earlier’s decline. Apps for purchase-money mortgages rose by 0.9% while those for refinancing (a more interest-rate sensitive audience) popped 14.2% higher. Although rates were mostly flat this week, any new declines should help see applications improve somewhat more, especially for refinancing.

Less favorable economic news in the headlines has see investors who speculate on what the Fed may do upping the odds of another cut in the federal funds rate when the central bank meets at the end of the month.

In this context, both “now” (late October) or December are yet a ways off, but we may get some inkling of their intention when the minutes of the September Fed meeting are released next Wednesday. In the near term, next week, the spate of less-positive economic data has already seen influential and underlying yields turn sharply lower in recent days. That has started to work its way into mortgage rates, and from where we stand it looks like we’ll see an 8-10 basis point decline in the average offered rate for a conforming 30-year FRM when Freddie Mac reports next Thursday..”

The following are interest rate quotes from John :Alvin of American California Financial Services, Inc. :