Rate Update for August 1st, 2008
Mortgage rates are unchanged this morning. However, we are going to shift our outlook to a locking position.
The Labor Department released their much anticipated monthly jobs report this morning. Their report showed that the US economy lost 51,000 jobs in the month of July. This marks the seventh consecutive month of job losses. For the year, the US economy has now lost 463,000 jobs. (for a detailed summary as to how the jobs report impacts mortgage rates read this link).
As gloomy as this news is the reported loss of 51,000 jobs is actually BETTER than analysts had expected. For this reason we are going to shift our outlook to locking as we think mortgage rates may actually worsen on the news.