“Low and slow”: The perfect strategy for cooking barbecue ribs, but far from ideal in terms of an economic situation. Unfortunately, “low and slow” is how our current economic recovery is playing out. Some of the latest economic reports that investors and analysts were hoping would thrust us toward a speedier rebound — June’s job report, home sales (to name a few) — haven’t delivered.

The one bright spot in our slogging economy is mortgage rates: Read the rest of this entry »

Last week’s blog posts pretty much focused on the homebuyer tax credit’s closing deadline. We did our absolute best to deliver the latest news as it happened. Let’s review last week’s posts:

Saturday:

“GUEST POST: ‘All Right! The Deadline Has Been Extended!‘”: Read the rest of this entry »

If you were following us last week you would have read that mortgage rates once again fell to record lows. How low? We’re talking the lowest levels in 54 years. On Thursday of last week, the 30-year Conforming fixed rate rang in at 4.69%, a figure last seen in 1956.

“There was a time when ultra-low mortgage rates would create a cascade of activity, 40-point headlines, and a bombardment of lender phones — a crush of volume that would overwhelm lender staffs,” according to the latest issue of HSH.com’s Market Trends Newsletter.

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This week was one for the record books, in the housing market that is. Mortgage rates fell to 54-year lows this week. Not since 1956 have market observers seen rates this low.

That said, on Thursday we mentioned that comparing mortgage rates from 1956 against 2010 isn’t exactly a fair comparison, even if they both range in at 4.69%.  For one, mortgage-rate records are very spotty when you go back five-plus decades, and two, the mortgage market was quite different back then.

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Update1: At the close of business today, the 30-year Conforming fixed rate rang in at 4.69%.

Original post: At the close of business yesterday, the 30-year Conforming fixed rate rang in at 4.75%, according to HSH.com. That’s a 54-year low for mortgage rates (from what we can reckon), the lowest we’ve ever recorded.

However, mortgage-rate records are very spotty when you go back five-plus decades, and comparing rates from today with rates from 1956 isn’t exactly fair since the mortgage market was quite different back then.

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Today is the official start of summer, a season typical of “languid times for real estate and housing markets.”

Last week, the extension of the Homebuyer Tax Credit’s closing deadline was the big news here on the blog (be sure to vote on our new poll if you haven’t already). Congress’ decision to extend the period of time in which borrowers can close on their home loans and still take advantage of up to an $8,000 credit, is likely to be the last government interaction in this targeted support for buyers (and sellers) that has increased, yet distorted, demand.

The latest issue of HSH.com’s Market Trends Newsletter, “Low Rates, but Summer of Distortion,” examines the “the distorting effects of government policy on that demand, and wonder how markets would have fared without those intrusions into their more natural functions.”

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It seems as though we’ve been using some variation of the same title for our Market Trends recap just about every Monday. As a matter of fact, the title of our posts on June 1 was “Mortgage Rates Set New Record Low.” According to the latest issue of HSH.com’s Market Trends Newsletter, mortgage rates fell even further last week, claiming a new record low.

Confidence is hard to come by these days. Friday’s jobs report certainly didn’t add to anyone’s confidence about a steadily-improving economic picture. Following the release of May’s employment report, stocks fell and hopeful aspirations were eroded. According to latest issue of HSH.com’s Market Trends Newsletter, an improving employment picture isn’t likely to influence higher mortgage rates in the immediate future:

The latest employment reports signal that while we’re on the right path, it’s still looking somewhat rocky. Given the number of job losses in the downturn — part of what the Fed considers “resource slack” — we may not see mortgage rate increases generated solely from labor market improvements any time soon.

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Just a reminder: The latest edition of our Two-Month Forecast for Mortgage Rates has been published.

On a bi-monthly basis, HSH.com releases their Two-Month Forecast for Mortgage Rates. In each forecast, we review our previous prediction — evaluating the circumstances that caused rates to do what they did — and we examine current factors and conditions in order to forecast mortgage rates over the next nine weeks or so.

What’s on tap for the future?

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Mortgage rates have set a new record low.

Last week, mortgage rates managed to tick even lower — albeit not by much — than the record-setting figured we recorded back on December 04, 2009. This time around, the record low was brought on not by federal intervention or a bleak economic picture, but by the continued fiscal struggles overseas:

The 4.90% seen for the [30-year Conforming fixed rate] was down by three basis points (.03%) from [the week ending 5/21/10], and two basis points better than our previous recorded low on December 4, 2009.

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