Right now, things are a little unusual in the economy. Even though the stock market basically tanked last week, mortgage rates still went up. By about a half a percentage point. Liquidity is a real problem right now in terms of the mortgage market. Behind the Mortgage offers a great explanation of what has been happening right now to upset the relationship between stocks and mortgage rates:
Normally, when stocks do poorly, mortgage rates improve. It should be
obvious to most that we are navigating through a stretch of
"non-normal" behavior in the financial markets. So it is no small
wonder that the relationship between stocks and mortgage bonds breaks
down (it does so periodically anyway even when we aren’t faced with
the biggest financial crisis ever) during extreme events.
Now, though, there are efforts to increase liquidity, both by the Fed increasing the amount of dollars available, and by banks around the world making efforts to stymie the financial crisis. If these measures actually work, it is possible that we will begin to see mortgage rates drop in the coming weeks.
Technorati Tags: dollars, financial crisis, mortgage blog, mortgage market, mortgage rates, Stock market


