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Mortgage Rate Lock Advisory for New York and Florida Mortgage Rates for Wednesday, March 14, 2012

By
Mortgage and Lending with Bob Amato of Empire Home Mortgage Inc

If you are looking for a Mortgage Professional who will give you the type of service that you deserve, contact Bob Amato (NMLS # 8632) and Empire Home Mortgage Inc. (NMLS # 44882). We answer our phones seven days a week until 9PM. Put us to the test! Our toll free number is (866) 742-5227.

 Visit our website, www.empirehomemortgageinc.com . There you can get answers to all of your financing questions, view rates and search for foreclosed properties.

 If you are considering locking in an interest rate for a New York mortgage or a Florida mortgage, read this post.

The benchmark 10 year Treasury Note is currently down 29/32, which will likely push mortgage rates higher by another .375 of a discount point on top of yesterday’s afternoon revision. Overall, we have lost a little more than .125 of a percent in rate since yesterday morning. With bonds still moving lower, we may see still another upward revision later today. As it appears that stocks and bonds are trading independently of each other today, we cannot rely on a possible stock reversal to erase today’s bond losses and mortgage rates increases. In other words, we will be paying less attention to stock movement to gauge bond and mortgage rate direction, at least for the next day or so.

 There is no relevant economic data scheduled for release today. We do have the 30 year Bond auction taking place today. A strong sale could help alleviate some pressure that we are seeing in bonds today, but there is little possibility of moving into positive ground and erasing today’s increase in mortgage pricing. At the very least, a strong sale could help prevent an intraday increase to rates this afternoon.

 Tomorrow brings us the release of one of the key inflation indexes we see each month. The Labor Department will post February's Producer Price Index (PPI) at 8:30 AM ET tomorrow morning. This important index measures inflationary pressures at the producer level of the economy. There are two portions of the index, the overall reading and the core data. The core data is more important and watched more closely because it excludes more volatile food and energy (including gasoline) prices. If the index shows a large increase, inflation concerns will rise, making long term investments such as mortgage related bonds less attractive to investors. This would lead to another increase in mortgage pricing. Current forecasts are calling for a 0.5% increase in the overall reading and a 0.2% increase in the core data. Since the Fed has already told us inflation does not seem to be a concern, slightly smaller increase will likely have little impact on tomorrow’s trading. Much weaker than expected readings could cause an improvement, but it will probably take a large variance from forecasts to see a sizable improvement in rates.

 Also tomorrow morning, the Labor Department will post their weekly update of unemployment figures. They are expected to announce that 355,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week, down a little from the previous week’s 362,000. A large increase would be favorable for bonds and mortgage rates, but I suspect the data will not heavily influence the markets or mortgage pricing.

 If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Lock if my closing was taking place within 7 days... Lock if my closing was taking place between 8 and 20 days... Float if my closing was taking place between 21 and 60 days... Float if my closing was taking place over 60 days from now... This is only my opinion of what I would do if I were financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.

 Empire Home Mortgage Inc. is a registered Mortgage Broker with the New York and Florida Banking Departments and our loans are arranged through third party providers.

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