Mortgage Rate Update April 18, 2016

Essentially mortgage rates are unchanged from last week.  They have oscillated within a .125% range since the beginning of April with only minor volatility.

Anytime we see prolonged periods of sideways trading I get nervous that a “breakout” is near.  A “breakout” is when rates move sharply one way or the other and given that rates are already near historic lows we have to assume they have a higher probability to breakout higher.

This week’s economic calendar is fairly light.  However the limited number of releases are housing focused.  Today we got the National Association of Homebuilders market index which was in line with expectations (no surprises here).  Tomorrow we’ll get building permits/ housing starts and on Wednesday the National Association of Realtors will report existing home sales.  On Friday we’ll get the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s housing price index.

The technical signals are also fairly quiet right now.  I will maintain a floating bias.  I don’t expect rates to improve much but at least we can buy some more time on our locks.

Current Outlook: floating bias