This can be a confusing time right now when it comes to determining whether to lock or float your mortgage rate to get the best deal.  As I write this, there are many originators talking about both sides of the spectrum as to where mortgage rates are headed.  While there is no real "crystal ball", there are many ways to forecast mortgage rates with a high degree of accuracy.

You have likely heard the phrase, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well, when it comes to investing, a picture is worth a thousand (or more) dollars, and that holds true to forecasting the direction of mortgage rates.  Charts present a picture of prices over a given time from one day to many years.  Add other indicators, such as stochastics, fibonnacci numbers, and moving averages, and, with practice, you can get a very clear "snapshot" of what lies ahead.  The fact is that you can even predict what some economic reports outcome will be simply looking at a securities chart.

Now, why do I talk about charting as it applies to investing in a security, whether a stock, mutual fund, index, or even a commodity or currency?  Quite simply, mortgage rates are based on mortgage backed securities (MBS), mortgage bonds if you will.  Once you know what securities to watch and chart, you can learn the skills it takes to accurately forecast the direction of mortgage rates, which I am nearing completion of a book on how to do just that.

No one can be 100% accurate in this game, however.  That is because at any given moment, news or some other event can swing the market sentiment and break through the barriers presented by charts.  That is how many trend reversals take place, and one thing we cannot gaurantee at this exact moment, is the level of participation the Fed is playing in the markets.  We can only find out each Thursday, when they announce how much they bought that week, and that throws some uncertainty into the mix.

Now, some of you already know I operate a blog called Florida Mortgage Daily which posts daily mortgage market updates, sometimes several times per day, and even shows my current locking stance.  It can be very technical for those that are interested or you can simply get my curent locking stance or scroll down and get the summary of what I expect.  Another place you can read what I feel the markets are doing is over at Lenderama, where I do a weekly mortgage market update.  In that post, I recap the prior week's events and market reactions and forecast what lies ahead for the coming week, not to mention list most, if not all, of the major economic events that could affect mortgage rates that week.

I know there are several real estate agents that are using this information to pass on to their clients.  There are even a fair number of mortgage professionals doing the same thing.  The material is copyrighted, so you must have permission from em should you want to use it, by I am fairly open with whomever cares to do so, just let me know ahead of time.  I will be starting up a new service very soon, so keep your eyes open for that as it will be like no other you have seen so far and will be 100% borrower focused.