Rate Update August 31, 2010

Mortgage rates are better this morning.

The economic data is mostly mixed today.  The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence here in the US was higher than analysts had expected for the month of July.  However, the Institute for Supply Management said that business activity in the Chicago region was worse than expected.

In housing news the S & P Case-Shiller home-price index showed that housing prices in the 20-major real estate markets increased by 4.2% on a year over year basis for June.  The markets have mostly ignored the report since June’s data includes the impact of the first-time homebuyer credit.

Investors are very interested in housing data these days.  As Bloomberg Business pointed out in THIS ARTICLE the housing market has led the economy out of recession in 7 out of the 8 times.  Moving forward should housing data come in better than expected then it could pressure rates higher and vice versa.

The markets are trading on low volume.  I suspect investors are waiting on the sidelines until Friday’s monthly jobs report.

Current outlook: long-term floating