Just an update on the economy and mortgage rates-  I had mentioned previously that rates are volatile because the inflation news raises rates and recession or slowdown news lowers rates. Mortgage rates have been moving up and down with every news headline.

Here is my best guess from what I read - most of the runup in prices in food and fuel have already happened, so I see inflation cooling off.  Plus, because people have been shelling out all their money this year for gas, they don't have much left to buy other things; this is going to drop consumer spending and pull the stockmarket downward, and also bring down mortgage rates.

When it comes to home sales, you need to know about another factor- the rate we quote for a 30 year fixed no longer applies to everybody. The base rate may be going down, but Fannie Mae is now charging higher fees and/or adding to the rate for anything except a perfect loan.  For example,  beginning November 1st if you have a 719 FICO score and have a down payment of 20-25%, you will have two additional fees, totaling 1%. This means on a $300,000 loan, your customer needs to come up with an extra $3000 in closing costs or pay roughly 1/4% higher mortgage rate.  The same loan with a 639 credit score has  3% in additional fees!!, they used to send loan officers to jail for charging fees like that. A year ago, a 639 with 20% down had no added fees. (These are all based on the middle of your three credit scores).

So, in short, not everyone who used to qualify will be able to, and I think Sellers ought to know that their pool of potential buyers is shrinking, because there are a lot of people who think they are potential buyers out there that haven't been in to talk to a lender yet, and may get some startling news that they qualify for less of a house than what they think.

One last item, as Fannie Mae is going  to hang people with their credit scores, it is best for people to know theirs. www.annualcreditreport.com  is the real 'free' service for Washington State that doesn't make you sign up for a credit monitoring service. Your clients will be able to see the items on their report, and  can pay $7-10 to each of the credit bureaus to actually get the scores.