Mortgage Rates Reach Two Month Highs.

DailyMORTGAGE LOCK ADVISORY 

August 16, 2012, 9:00 am PST

Click for Lock Advice Updated Several Times Daily

Rates could easily move higher or lower, but given the nearness to all time lows, there's generally more risk than reward regarding floating so my advice is to lock.

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Mortgage Rates Reach Two Month Highs.

Mortgage Rates made an abrupt move higher today, leaving most lenders at their worst levels since early June.  Recent momentum has carried rates in a weaker direction despite a relative lack of impetus from underlying market events.  At first, this could be chalked up to low volume volatility, but volume surged today (yesterday too, to a smaller extent), and securities in rates markets hit levels not seen in months.  All told, it was enough to move the Best-Execution rate decisively up to 3.625%.  Read More Mortgage News Daily 

The 2 Million Dollar Intern
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Mortgage Rates Edge Higher Despite Generally Improved Market Conditions
 by Matthew Graham
Mortgage Rates were paradoxically higher today giving some pause to a bounce back from the month's highest rates last week.  Although not altogether uncommon, today's mortgage rate landscape is slightly counterintuitive in the sense that Treasuries and even underlying MBS (the "mortgage-backed-securities" that most directly influence mortgage rates) have been in marginally improved territory most of the day (improved = lower rates). Read More Mortgage News Daily

Exclusive: Former Barclays trader "has cooperated" with Libor probe
 By Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Barclays Plc trader who was fired by the bank for sending inappropriate emails about Libor "has cooperated" with the federal criminal probe into the alleged rigging of international benchmark interest rates, according to the New York hedge fund that currently employs the trader.  Read More Reuters

Ten Charged With $40 Million Jersey Shore Mortgage Fraud
 By David Voreacos
Ten people were charged with a $40 million fraud relying on phony documents and straw buyers to bilk mortgage lenders for properties at the New Jersey Shore and resorts in South Carolina and Georgia, prosecutors said.
The 10 were accused today of using unqualified buyers to purchase 28 oceanfront condominiums from financially distressed developers in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, according to an indictment in federal court in Camden, New Jersey. They used similar methods to buy 21 properties in Georgia and South Carolina, and eight properties in foreclosure in New Jersey. Read More Bloomberg

National Foreclosure Activity Gradually Subsiding; Many States Remain Distressed
 Foreclosure activity appears to finally be on a downward track, although the road is still a rough one in many states.   The RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for shows that foreclosure filings were down 3 percent in July compared to June and were 10 percent lower than in July 2011.  This was the 22nd consecutive month that the annual rate declined. Read More Mortgage News Daily