The rates on fixed rates mortgages increased this week. Oil prices fell (my gas station was down 3 cents/gal) and the housing market hit a new low. First existing home sales were announced to be down yesterday. This brought the market down 119 points and interest rates up ¼ point. This morning, I heard new home sales were up. By the time I arrived in the office, oops….they were down. Make up your mind!

A quote from www.bankrate.com.

“The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee meets next week, and in the absence of compelling economic news, investors appear to be waiting for the mandarins of the central bank to hand down their assessments of the economy. Meantime, a distraction came Tuesday in the form of the Index of Leading Economic Indicators for December. That report from the Conference Board came in a bit better than expected — up 0.3 percent rather than the consensus prediction of an advance of 0.2 percent.

The stronger-than-expected leading economics indicator index was one of several factors that persuaded investors to move money out of bonds and into stocks. Bond prices went down, yields went up and mortgage rates followed the yields. Other things pushing bond yields up: a Treasury auction that added more bonds to the supply and good financial results from tech companies.”

I predict: next week………the rates are back down to where they were by mid-week.

Have a great weekend.