Mortgage Rates Soar After Employment Data

Mortgage rates skyrocketed today at their quickest pace since the end of January.  This is due to the Employment Situation displaying an unusually high amount of jobs created in the month of February.  The Employment Situation is one aspect of domestic economic data that is released monthly; this particular piece can greatly affect markets.  This took place on Friday, as the 30 year Fixed Best-Execution rose to 3.75% since May last year.  Lenders continue to offer low rates, but are dramatically increasing costs as of Friday.  For every $100,000 of a loan that you take out, you will pay an extra $700 in closing costs today as compared with Friday.

This marks the beginning of an upward trend in rates that has been speculated about for many months.  This upward trend has many similarities to the past several years of European economic stability concerns as well as to quantitative easing.  However, both options seem extremely unlikely right now, so rates are still continuing to increase.  The decision to float this weekend is smarter than any other day in the past several weeks, but there is still no guarantee that rates won’t increase further next week.

Lenders are trying to encourage consumers, who are still waiting for rates to drop, to take action.  Some lenders think that this increase could be short-lived, as the job reports looked good the previous year.

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Gretchen Wegrich

Gretchen Wegrich is an editor at Lender411. She specializes in mortgage basics, personal finance and green living. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in writing from University of California, San Diego and previously worked at the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Contact her at gretchen@lender411com.