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Important notes on today’s mortgage rates

Naturally, few buying or refinancing will actually qualify for the lowest rates you’ll see bandied around in some media and lender ads. Those are typically available only to people with stellar credit scores, big down payments and robust finances (so-called top-tier borrowers). And, even then, the state in which you’re buying can affect your rate.

Still, prior to locking, everyone buying or refinancing stands to lose when rates rise or gain when they fall.

When movements are very small, many lenders don’t bother changing their rate cards. Instead, you might find you have to pay a little more or less on closing in compensation.

Overall, we still think it possible that the Federal Reserve’s going to drive rates even lower over time. However, there was a lot going on here, even before the green shoots of economic recovery began to emerge. There’s even more now. And, as we’ve recently seen, the Fed can only influence some of the forces that affect mortgage rates some of the time. So nothing is assured.

Rate lock advice

My recommendation reflects the success so far of the Fed’s actions. I personally suggest:

• LOCK if closing in 7 days
• LOCK if closing in 15 days
• FLOAT if closing in 30 days
• FLOAT if closing in 45 days
• FLOAT if closing in 60 days

But it’s entirely your decision.

The Fed might end up pushing down rates even further over the coming weeks, though that’s far from certain. (Read on for specialist economists’ forecasts.) And you can expect bad patches when they rise.

As importantly, the coronavirus has created massive uncertainty — and disruption that seems capable of defying in the short term all human efforts, including perhaps the Fed’s. So locking or floating is a gamble either way.

What economists expect for mortgage rates

So far this month, economic reports may have changed a lot of economists’ expectations. Pretty much everyone was shocked by the latest, much better-than-expected employment and retail sales figures. But many were sobered by the Federal Reserve’s worrying forecasts for economic growth and employment on June 10.

It’s too soon to say that those have transformed the economic landscape. But read the following with the knowledge that at least one of the forecasts cited was made well before any of those events.

Looking good … to most

On May 21, Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale predicted low mortgage rates for the foreseeable future. Of course, it’s unlikely she meant there would be a continuing straight line that only went downward. Some rises along the way are pretty much inevitable.

“We expect mortgage rates to stay low and possibly slip lower,” Hale said on Realtor.com. “We’ll flirt with the 3% threshold for a while before we go below it.”

And she’s already been proved right. But, of course, not all experts share Hale’s rosy view, at least over the medium term. Indeed, her own publication, Realtor.com, said recently that it thought rates could soon rise above their then-current sub-3% level.

See the table below for forecasts from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Mortgage rates forecasts for 2020

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. — John Kenneth Galbraith, Harvard economist

Galbraith made a telling point about economists’ forecasts. But there’s nothing wrong with taking them into account, appropriately seasoned with a pinch of salt. After all, who else are we going to ask when making financial plans?

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the MBA each has a team of economists dedicated to monitoring and forecasting what will happen to the economy, the housing sector and mortgage rates.

The numbers

And here are their latest forecasts for the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage during each quarter (Q1, Q2 …) in 2020. All (including Freddie’s, which is now a quarterly report) were published last week.

So, suddenly, Fannie Mae’s optimism is the outlier. And nobody’s expecting a quarterly average below the 3.0% mark this year.

What should you conclude from all this? That nobody’s sure about much but that wild optimism about the direction of mortgage rates might be misplaced.

Further ahead

The gap between forecasts is real and widens the further ahead forecasters look. So Fannie’s now expecting that rate to average 2.9% throughout next year, while Freddie’s anticipating 3.2%. And the MBA thinks it will be back up to 3.5% for the last half of 2021. Indeed, the MBA reckons it will average 3.7% during 2022. You pays yer money …

Still, all these forecasts show significantly lower rates this year and next than in 2019, when that particular one averaged 3.94%, according to Freddie Mac’s archives.

And never forget that last year had the fourth-lowest mortgage rates since records began. Better yet, this year may well deliver an all-time annual low.

Mortgages tougher to get

The mortgage market is currently very messy. And some lenders are offering appreciably lower rates than others.

Worse, many have been putting restrictions on their loans. So you might have found it harder to find a cash-out refinance, a loan for an investment property, a jumbo loan — or any mortgage at all if your credit score is damaged.

All this makes it even more important than usual that you shop widely for your mortgage and compare quotes from multiple lenders.

That credit tightening in figures

The Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey, published by Fannie Mae on June 11, suggested that problem continues. Its survey of lenders found, “the net share of lenders reporting easing credit standards for both the prior three months and the next three months significantly decreased, reaching survey lows.”

In the MBA’s May Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) report, published June 9, the index fell less sharply than in April: by 3.1%. However, it’s important to recognize that any fall represents a tightening in the credit standards lenders use. So things may not be getting worse as quickly as they were but they’re still getting a little worse.

However, some see some light in this gloom. When two weeks ago National Mortgage Professional magazine hosted an expert panel discussion about mortgages for those with “credit issues in the past such as foreclosures, bankruptcy, late payments or other isolated credit issues,” there were knowledgeable participants who expected a resurgence in activity soon.

Economic worries

Mortgage rates traditionally improve (move lower) the worse the economic outlook. So where the economy is now and where it might go are relevant to rate watchers.

And, in spite of those recent, better-than-expected reports, there’s unfortunately plenty of potentially bad news that could have a negative effect on the US and global economies.

Indeed, yesterday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its forecasts for global growth this year. And it expects the global economy to shrink by 4.9%, much worse than its 3% estimate in April.

The IMF’s expectations for the US economy are even more dire. Its latest forecast for that suggests likely shrinkage of 8%. Is it any consolation that it thinks the eurozone countries will do even worse, with negative growth north of 10%?

COVID-19 still a huge threat

The main trigger for yesterday’s sharp falls in stock markets was concern about the grip the country has on managing the pandemic. On Wednesday, the US recorded its largest one-day increase in COVID-19 cases ever, with the nationwide number jumping by 38,762, according to the cOVID Tracking Project.

Some take comfort in the death rate not climbing as fast. But scientists warn that mortalities always lag behind infections.

And, yesterday, Nicholas G. Reich, associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told The Washington Post: “As long as there is a fair amount of testing going on, if there is an uptick in covid-19 infections, then we are likely to see that in the confirmed case data before we see it in the death data.”

Reich went on to say that he expected “… rises in covid-19 deaths over the next month in many of the states that are seeing upticks in cases, like Texas, California, Florida and others, even though the deaths have been either steady or declining in recent weeks.”

Non-pandemic news

Meanwhile, in other news, Monday saw a brief blip in markets when White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News that the trade deal with China was “over.” President Donald Trump quickly stepped in with a tweet: “The China trade deal is fully intact. Hopefully they will continue to live up to the terms of the agreement!”

But, while Navarro’s slip may have been an error, it remains revealing. As we’ve recently been reporting, relations between Washington DC and Beijing have recently been especially strained. And, last week, the US fell out with European countries over the taxing of American companies there. Inevitably, those raise the possibility of a new trade war, perhaps on two fronts.

As worryingly, an actual war could be brewing on the border between India and China. Those (both nuclear powers) are the world’s two biggest countries by population and rank second and fifth by gross domestic product (GDP).

Domestic threat

Most important recent economic data have been looking good. For example, the latest employment and retail sales numbers were way better than most economists expected. But you need to see them in their wider context.

First, they follow disastrous lows. You expect record gains after record losses. And, secondly, the pandemic is far from over, with some states still recording frightening numbers of new cases and deaths.

So, while good news is more than welcome, it can mask the devastation wreaked on the economy by COVID-19.

Worries

Some concerns that remain valid include:

1. We’re currently officially in recession
2. Unemployment is expected to remain elevated for the foreseeable future — For the past two Thursdays, new weekly jobless claims were actually worse than anticipated
3. On June 17, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow running resource put its real GDP growth forecast for the current quarter at -45.5% (yes, that a minus)
4. On June 1, the Congressional Budget Office reduced its expectations of US growth over the period between 2020 and 2030. Compared with its forecast in January, the CBO now expects America to miss out on $7.9 trillion in growth over that decade

As we’ve been saying for several days, not only are we not yet out of the woods, but we may still have no clue where their boundaries are located.

Indeed, that exact sentiment was echoed yesterday by IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath, who said: “We are definitely not out of the woods. This is a crisis like no other and will have a recovery like no other.”

What shape will a recession take?

Economists are squabbling about the shape (if you pictured it on a graph) the recession might take.

For a while, a V-shaped one (sharp dip and sharp recovery) was favorite. And it still is for some. Indeed, they may well be preening themselves following the latest employment and retail sales reports.

But other shapes are available. So some think a W more likely, especially if there’s a second wave of coronavirus infections following the early ending of lockdowns. A “Nike swoosh” (based on that company’s famous logo) is gaining popularity. That’s a sharp drop followed by a gradual recovery. 

But on May 29, The New York Times urged everyone to “Forget swooshes and Vs. The economy’s future is a question mark.” By which it meant, quit squabbling because nobody has a clue.

Markets seem untethered from reality — or not?

We’ve recently been accusing markets (or the investors who make them up) of being untethered from reality. And we’ve been quoting a May 15 headline in The New Yorker: “Have the Record Number of Investors in the Stock Market Lost Their Minds?”

On June 16, controversial, Nobel-prizewinning, Princeton economist Paul Krugman wrote this for The New York Times:

What are these investors thinking? I don’t think they are thinking — not really. The conventions of financial reporting more or less require that articles about market action ascribe rationality to investors, so stock movements are attributed to optimism about economic recovery, or something. But the reality is that we’re largely talking about young men, many with a background in sports betting, who have started buying stocks and are bullish because they’ve made money so far.

On June 14, CNN Business reported that just one online brokerage, TD Ameritrade, had opened 608,000 new accounts during the first quarter of this year. That was more than double the number in the previous quarter. Some, such as Krugman, see this as a response to lockdown, with inexperienced and unknowledgeable amateur investors piling into a high-risk environment.

Economic reports this week

Perhaps owing to that surge in inexperienced investors, markets have in recent months been shrugging off unwelcome economic reports and reacting only to those that contain positive information. That may well continue this week.

In more normal times, Friday would be the most important day for news. It’s then that May’s figures emerge for personal income, consumer spending and core inflation. It also brings the final reading of the consumer sentiment index for this month.

Forecasts matter

More normally, any economic report can move markets, as long as it contains news that’s shockingly good or devastatingly bad — providing that news is unexpected.

That’s because markets tend to price in analysts’ consensus forecasts (below, we use those reported by MarketWatch) in advance of the publication of reports. So it’s usually the difference between the actual reported numbers and the forecast that has the greatest effect.

And that means even an extreme difference between actuals for the previous reporting period and this one can have little immediate impact, providing that difference is expected and has been factored in ahead.

This week’s calendar

This week’s calendar of important, domestic economic reports comprises:

• Monday: May Existing home sales (annualized actual 3.91 million homes sold; forecast 3.80 million)
• Tuesday: May’s new home sales (annualized actual 676,000 new homes sold; forecast 650,000)
• Wednesday: April home price index from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (actual +5.5% year-over-year change; no forecast). Plus International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic forecasts (US economy to shrink by 8.0% in 2020; no forecast)
• Thursday: Weekly jobless claims to June 20 (1.48 million new claims; forecast 1.38 million). Third and final reading of gross domestic product for the first quarter (actual –5.0%; forecast -5.0%, as previously)
• Friday: May report for personal income (forecast -7.0%), consumer spending (forecast +9.9%) and core inflation (forecast +0.1%). Plus June’s revised consumer sentiment index (forecast 79.3 index points)

If markets follow recent form, they’ll cherry pick the good news in these reports and ignore the bad.