Market Commentary for the Last Week of March

This week brings us the release of six economic reports that have the potential to move mortgage rates with two of them considered to be highly important to the markets. The first is February’s Personal Income & Outlays report early Monday morning. This data helps us measure consumers’ ability to spend and current spending habits, which is important to the mortgage market because of the influence that consumer spending related information has on the financial markets. If a consumers’ income is rising, they are more likely to make additional purchases in the near future. This raises inflation concerns, adds fuel for economic growth and has a negative effect on the bond market and mortgage rates. Current forecasts are calling for a 0.3% increase in income and a 0.2% rise in spending. Smaller than expected increases would be good news for bonds and mortgage shoppers.

Tuesday also has only one report worth watching. This will come from the New York-based Conference Board at 10:00 AM ET when they post their Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for March. This index gives us an indication of consumers’ willingness to spend. Bond traders watch this data closely because consumer spending makes up over two-thirds of our economy. If this report shows that confidence in their own financial situations is falling, it would indicate that consumers are less apt to make a large purchase in the near future. If it reveals that confidence looks to be growing, we may see bond traders sell as economic growth may rise, pushing mortgage rates higher Tuesday morning. It is expected to show a reading of 96.2 down slightly from February’s 96.4 reading. The lower the reading, the better the news it is for bonds and mortgage rates.

The ADP Employment report is set for release early Wednesday morning, which has the potential to cause some movement in the markets if it shows much stronger or weaker numbers. This report tracks changes in private-sector jobs of ADP’s clients that use them for payroll processing. While it does draw attention, it is my opinion that it is overrated and is not a true reflection of the broader employment picture. It also is not accurate in predicting results of the monthly government report that usually follows a couple days later. Still, because we could see at least a moderate reaction to the results, we will be watching it. Analysts are expecting it to show that 228,000 new payrolls were added. The lower the number of jobs, the better the news it is for mortgage rates.

Wednesday’s second report is actually one of those highly important ones and comes at 10:00 AM ET. That is when the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) will release their manufacturing index. This index gives us an important measurement of manufacturer sentiment by surveying manufacturing executives. It is the first piece of data that we see each month that covers the preceding month. In other words, it is the freshest economic data each month. A reading above 50 means more surveyed executives felt business improved during the month than those who said it had worsened. This month’s report is expected to show a reading of 52.5, which would be a decline from February’s reading of 52.9. This means that analysts think business sentiment slipped from last month’s level. That would be relatively good news for the bond market and mortgage rates, although a noticeable decline would be better for rates. The higher the reading, the worse news it is for bonds and mortgage rates.

February’s Factory Orders will be released late Thursday morning. This data is similar to last week’s Durable Goods Orders report, except it includes orders for both durable and non-durable goods, giving us another measurement of manufacturing sector strength. It is considered to be only moderately important to the bond and mortgage markets, so unless it varies greatly from forecasts of a 0.5% decline, I suspect that the data will have a minimal impact on Thursday’s mortgage rates.

The biggest news of the week will come early Friday morning when the Labor Department posts March’s Employment report, revealing the U.S. unemployment rate and the number of jobs added or lost during the month. This is an extremely important report to the financial and mortgage markets. It is expected to show that the unemployment rate remained at 5.5% and that approximately 248,000 payrolls were added to the economy during the month. A higher unemployment rate and a much smaller than expected payroll number would be good news for bonds and could likely push mortgage rates lower Friday morning because it would indicate weaker than thought conditions in the employment sector of the economy.

Overall, Friday is the biggest day of the week due to the significance of the Employment report but I suspect we will have an active day in mortgage rates Wednesday also. Adding to the importance of Friday’s data is the fact that the bond market will be open only until noon in recognition of the Good Friday holiday while the stock markets will be closed the entire day. It surely will be an interesting day to cap off the week. I strongly recommend maintaining contact with your mortgage professional this week if still floating an interest rate and closing in the near future.

Your Home-Buying Strategy

by Phoebe Chongchua

Buying a home is both exciting and sometimes stressful…whether you’re a first-time homebuyer or an expert at it. The key to reducing the stress and successfully finding the home that matches your wants, needs, and budget is to have a home-buying strategy.

A home-buying strategy serves to keep you focused, in line with your goals, and on financial track. It can function much like a marketing strategy does for a company. It contains the important tasks, outlines your objectives in buying a home, your must-haves in a home, your financial budget, your move-in timeframe, location, desires, and more.

It may sound like a lot of work but if you take the time to put together a home-buying strategy and then share it with your real estate agent, you’ll find that the clear goals you have will bring you closer to finding exactly what you’re looking for and, likely, in a shorter period of time.

Putting together your home-buying strategy: In previous columns, I’ve written about getting organized for your move by organizing a binder that holds your vital paperwork and any materials that you’ll immediately need during the moving process.

Organizing your home-buying strategy works in a similar way. You’ll start by taking inventory of the home you currently live in. This gives you the opportunity to note both the pros and cons. Write it all down. Then write down your must-haves, would-love-to-haves, and absolutely-nots. You can write a list on notebook paper and place it in a three-ring binder and share it with your agent. In today’s digital era there are many highly useful tools and apps to help you with house hunting. The creative and social website, pinterest.com is wonderful for saving website links and photos to various boards that you organize in categories. Even if you keep digital files, also keep the binder handy as your agent will give you lots of paperwork and having it all in one place will be a big relief when it comes time to find a particular document.

Seek out financing. Do this before you start to physically go out and look for homes. Sure, seeing lots of different homes can be fun (for some people) but seeing homes that you don’t qualify for is a lesson in frustration for all. Be realistic and be informed by getting the information you need from a mortgage broker who can get you pre-qualified.

Create categories in your binder. Separate sections with tabs and label them things like: budget, favorites, neighborhood, comps. This is where you will place the notes you take during your house hunting. The “budget” section clearly has the defined price point that you are comfortable with. Surprisingly, some buyers start their shopping without giving careful consideration to this and they wind up frustrated because they’re not certain how much home they can afford. The “budget” section also includes other expenses that go along with owning a home such as amount of savings for household repairs and, perhaps, new home furnishings.

Bring along a small camera, video recorder or your smartphone to capture your own quick snapshots that you can print out and put in the “favorites” section of your binder. For the “neighborhood” section, be sure to take a few photos of parks or other areas in the community that make this neighborhood and location a good potential match. Again, there are apps that can also do this on your computer but I find both the use of a physical binder and digital tools to be the most effective. Sometimes you just need to see and hold the photo or papers in your hand.

In the “comps” section, you’ll place the comps that you receive from your agent. Sometimes buyers will toss this information away thinking they’ll remember the details. However, it’s best to keep any comps you receive to review it again later when you’re making your ultimate choice. Yes, there is lots of paperwork but it serves a good purpose.

Having all that paperwork and your digital apps at your finger tips will provide you with a solid and effective home-buying strategy that allows you to focus on finding the home you’re looking for rather than searching for papers and photos you’ve misplaced. Also, later when you’re contemplating, referencing the photos and notes that you’ve taken will help tip the scale and help you choose the home that’s right for you.

Staying Safe Exercising In The Dark

The mornings are darker now for a little while after the time change and the days will slowly start to stay lighter later. Whether you go out for a run in the early morning or a bike ride in the late afternoon (or both), there are some important things you should do to ensure you are seen and safe.

Don’t zone out too much. If you’re wearing headphones and listening to music or an audiobook, keep the volume down so you’re aware of your surroundings.

Also, ensure that you carry some means of identification with you.

Finally, make certain that you’re seen. Don’t assume they see you. Don’t dart right out. Just because you have the right of way doesn’t mean you’d survive to complain about it in court if the person didn’t see you.

Some friends may counsel to just exercise indoors, but there’s something about getting lungs full of the cold air and the absolute quiet of the dawn that makes exercising outside fun even during the fall and winter.

6 Tips for Exercising In the Dark

Active.com published their 6 important tips for staying safe while exercising in the dark.

1. Move in the Right Direction – Bike with traffic and run against traffic. This rule of thumb applies for all times of the day.
2. Be Reflective – Darkness creates even more danger for exercisers. People driving to work before sunrise and returning home after sunset are not thinking about encountering joggers and cyclists.
3. See Clearly -When the midday sun shines brightly, you wouldn’t think of heading out without your wrap-around dark-lens shades.
4. Brighten Your Day – Don’t wear black or other dark colors, especially if riding a bike.
5. Creature Comforts – In many parts of the U.S., mountain and off-road trails are popular routes for runners, cyclists and hikers. While automobile traffic isn’t a concern on the meandering paths, big critters should be. Mountain lions, snakes and other potentially dangerous creatures are most active at dawn and dusk.
6. Early Bird – While daylight ends earlier in the evening, setting the clocks back does offer earlier morning sun. Your commute and morning routine at home may not allow for an entire workout without darkness. But setting out before or at sunrise is the best way to guarantee it actually occurs.

Competitor.com posted their 7 Safety Tips for Running When It’s Dark

1. Wear safety lights that can be seen on your front and back.
2. Run facing traffic.
3. Choose the right route – they’re recommending learning the route for cracks in the sidewalks that could trip you. And they recommend running on the sidewalk because it’s safer in the dark.
4. Carry a cell phone.
5. Carry your ID – they have a picture of a wrist band with identification stamped in metal that lists your name, address, blood type, etc. If anything happened to you, having this would help make a bad situation better.
6. Wear a hat with a brim – it helps with the glare of being blinded by headlights and keeps you warmer.
7. Ditch the tunes – better to stay more aware of your surroundings even if it gets boring.

So whether you run, jog, bike or walk, stay aware of your surroundings, be seen, and carry your phone and ID.

Where is your favorite exercise route? And does it end up at a coffee shop for your reward?

Market Commentary for the Week of March 23rd

This week brings us the release of six pieces of relevant economic data along with two Treasury auctions that have the potential to affect mortgage rates. Most of the reports can influence mortgage rates but none of them are considered extremely important or key data.

February’s Existing Home Sales report will be released today and is posted by the National Association of Realtors. It will give us a measurement of housing sector strength and mortgage credit demand. It is expected to reveal an increase in home resales, meaning the housing sector improved last month. Ideally, bond traders would prefer to see a decline in sales, pointing towards a weakening housing sector. Bad news would be a sizable increase in sales, indicating that the housing sector is gaining momentum. That could be troublesome for the bond market and mortgage rates because housing strength makes broader economic growth more likely.

February’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) will be released at 8:30 AM ET tomorrow, which measures inflationary pressures at the very important consumer level of the economy. Its results are watched closely by bond market traders and analysts because rising inflation makes long-term securities such as mortgage-related bonds less appealing to investors and may alter the Fed’s timeline for raising short-term rates. It is expected to show a 0.2% increase in the overall index and a 0.1% rise in the more important core data that excludes more volatile food and energy prices. If we see weaker than expected readings like we did in its’ sister release Producer Price Index (PPI), bond prices should rise and mortgage rates will likely fall early Tuesday.

Also tomorrow morning, the Commerce Department will give us February’s New Home Sales figures. They are expected to announce a decline in sales of newly constructed homes. This report tracks a much smaller percentage of home sales than Monday’s Existing Home Sales report covered, so it should have a much weaker influence on the markets and mortgage pricing. A large increase in sales would be negative for the bond market and mortgage pricing because it would point towards economic strength.

Wednesday’s only economic data is February’s Durable Goods Orders at 8:30 AM ET. This Commerce Department report gives us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength by tracking new orders for big-ticket items, or products that are expected to last three or more years such as electronics, appliances and airplanes. This data is known to be volatile from month to month but is still considered to be of fairly high importance to the markets. Analysts are expecting it to show an increase in new orders of approximately 0.5%. A much larger increase would be considered negative for bonds as it would indicate economic strength and could lead to higher mortgage rates Wednesday morning. Since these orders are volatile, it will take a wider variance from forecasts for it to move mortgage rates than other data requires.

Friday has two pieces of data scheduled that are worth watching. The final revision to the 4th Quarter GDP is first at 8:30 AM ET. This is the second and final revision to January’s preliminary reading of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, or the sum of all goods and services produced in the U.S. The GDP is the benchmark measurement of economic activity. It is expected to show that the economy grew at an annual pace of 2.4% last quarter, up from the previous estimate of 2.2% that was released last month. Analysts are now more concerned with next month’s preliminary reading of the 1st quarter than data from three to six months ago, so I don’t expect this report to affect mortgage rates much.

The final report of the week comes from the University of Michigan just before 10:00 AM ET Friday. Their revision to their March Consumer Sentiment Index will give us another indication of consumer confidence, which hints at consumers’ willingness to spend. Rising confidence is considered bad news for the bond market and mortgage pricing because it usually means consumers are more willing to spend. Friday’s report is expected to show little change from the preliminary reading of 92.1. Favorable results for bonds and mortgage rates would be a sizable decline in confidence.

In addition to this week’s economic reports, there are two relatively important Treasury auctions that may also influence bond trading enough to affect mortgage rates. There will be an auction of 5-year Notes Wednesday and 7-year Notes on Thursday. Neither of these sales will directly impact mortgage pricing, but they can influence general bond market sentiment. If the sales go poorly, we could see broader selling in the bond market that leads to upward revisions to mortgage rates. However, strong sales usually make bonds more attractive to investors and bring more funds into the bond market. The buying of bonds that follows often translates into lower mortgage rates. Results of the sales will be posted at 1:00 PM ET auction day, so look for any reaction to come during afternoon hours.

Overall, I believe tomorrow will be the most active day for mortgage rates with multiple reports but Wednesday’s only data is arguably the most important report of the week so it could be an active day also. I am expecting to see a much calmer week for rates this week than we saw last week. Still, with events set for each day, we still could see movement in rates for the week. Accordingly, please maintain contact with your mortgage professional if still floating an interest rate.

Market Commentary for the Week of March 16th

This week brings us the release of three monthly reports for the bond market to digest in addition to a Fed-filled day in the middle part of the week. The calendar will kicked off mid-morning today when February’s Industrial Production report was posted at 9:15 AM ET. The report measures manufacturing sector strength by tracking output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities. The report was expected to show a 0.3%, but came in lower at 0.1%. The decline is considered favorable news for bonds and mortgage rates because it indicates manufacturing sector weakness and broader economic growth more difficult if manufacturing activity is slipping.

February’s Housing Starts data will be released early tomorrow morning. It tracks construction starts of new housing. It doesn’t usually cause much movement in mortgage rates and is considered one of the less important reports we see each month. It is expected to show a decline in housing starts, indicating weakness in the housing sector. Good news for the bond market and mortgage rates would be a sizable decline in new starts, but unless we see a large variance from forecasts the data likely will not lead to a noticeable move in mortgage pricing.

Wednesday is the day with several Fed events scheduled. They start with the 2:00 PM ET adjournment of the two-day FOMC meeting that began Tuesday. It is widely expected that Fed Chair Yellen and company will not change key short-term interest rates at this meeting, although market participants will be watching the post-meeting statement closely for changes in verbiage that could indicate when their first move will take place. Any surprises on this could heavily influence the markets and mortgage rates Wednesday afternoon.

The FOMC meeting is ending a little earlier than the traditional 2:15 PM because it is one of the meetings that will be followed by a press conference with Chairman Yellen. The meeting will adjourn at 2:00 PM while the press conference will begin at 2:30 PM and will probably lead to afternoon volatility in the markets and mortgage rates Wednesday. The Fed will also update their economic and monetary policy projections during this time. Any significant revisions to the Fed’s outlook on unemployment, GDP growth or their timetable for keeping key rates at current levels will also cause volatility in the markets and mortgage rates.

The Conference Board will post its Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) for February late Thursday morning. This index attempts to measure economic activity over the next three to six months. It is considered to be moderately important, but likely will not have a significant impact on mortgage rates. Current forecasts are calling for a 0.2% increase, meaning it is predicting that economic activity will likely expand modestly in the coming months. A smaller than forecasted rise, or better yet a decline would be considered good news for the bond market and mortgage rates.

Overall, I am considering Wednesday as the key day of the week with the Fed events scheduled. None of this week’s economic data is of too much concern, but it coupled with a sizable move in stocks can cause a moderate change in mortgage rates. The least important day will probably be Friday. The Fed events are just too important to the markets to ignore, so I am holding the current conservative stance on mortgage rates- at least for the time being.

Should You Fix Up Your Home or Trade Up?

With mortgage rates so low, you may be asking yourself if you should trade up your home to a larger one or if you should look into an equity line of credit and add on additions to your current home.

Money magazine has a detailed article in their April, 2013 edition that looked at two case studies. For one family, they needed more room than their current home could be expanded to. For the second couple, they were happy adding on for what they needed.

The case studies evaluated how much space was needed, what the budget would be, the ROI, and the impact on the homeowners. The couple that remodeled their home will have to find a short term rental apartment for the six months that their house is being renovated. The family that traded up has the cost of movers, but they may need additional housing if they sell their home before they close on the new one.

So what should you look into?

Step One – Is Selling a Realistic Option

If homes in your area aren’t selling, you may not have much choice. Of course, you could look into turning your current home into a rental, and buying a new home. Again, you’ll need to do some soul searching to decide if you want to be a landlord, and if your finances can afford that option.

Also, if your credit is not very good or you’re buried under credit card debt, you should probably wait until you’re on more stable ground.

Step Two – Do You Want to Move

If you really love your neighborhood, and the schools, and the shopping, parks, bike paths, neighbors, you may want to ask yourself if you really want to move. If the answer is no, then you can start to look at how much extra space do you want, and if it’s possible with your current home and lot size.

Step Three – Where Do You See Yourself in 5-10 Years?

If you’re in a small townhouse, and you intend to start a family, you may want to look into buying a new house. If you’re in a medium size house, but your kids will be gone by then, you may want to stay put. You may be retiring in 5-10 years and no longer want a house with stairs, or one that’s closer to more senior activities.

Step Four – Crunch Those Numbers

You may want the help of a tax advisor when you look at whether or not you will be subject to capital gains taxes if you sell your current home. Consider having a home appraiser come in to let you know the current value of your home. Ask them how it would impact the value if you added on the additions. Also, you will want to have a home inspection to identify any major or minor repairs that would need to be done before selling.

A good general contractor can help you estimate the costs involved with the remodel. You can estimate costs of green upgrades and other remodeling that you may have been wanting to do.

Figure out if you would need to spend time living in a rental while your home is being remodeled or if you sold your home before you bought a new one.

Get an estimate from movers if it’s free with no obligation.

Calculate your expenses if you sold the home including termite inspection, home inspection, closing costs, any penalties for early pay off of your current mortgage, etc.

Then add it all up.

Step Five – Think and Talk

Spend some time on your own thinking, and spend some time with your partner talking about the whole situation.

And do remember, if you remodel, you will get it exactly how you want it. However, if you’re not that happy where you’re living, you could find your dream home and have the opportunity to move into it. Zillow has a useful article with some calculators here. They also provide a list of the return on investment for remodeling areas of your home.

Step Six – Look Into Financing

Talk to your mortgage loan officer to find out what you would qualify for with a new mortgage or with a home equity line of credit. They may have some programs available that would be perfect for you.

Are you thinking of trading up?

Picture This House: Why Photos Sell Your Home

by Phoebe Chongchua

As we head into fall, the change in seasons brings about a feeling of concern for some sellers. They fear that their home won’t be looked at as much or, worse, won’t sell.

Yes, it’s true that many buyers, especially those with children, like to be settled into their new home before the school year starts. However, that doesn’t mean it’s too late for your home to sell.

Stepping up the marketing and generating the right kind of buzz can keep the visits to your home high and create interest in some high traffic places such as social media outlets that can help lure potential buyers in.

We all know the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Well, when it comes to real estate, homes with high-quality pictures are about 60 percent more viewed than those advertised without photos. I’d say that poor photos would also lessen the chance that your home is viewed and/or visited.

This simply makes sense when you think about where most people start to shop for a home–online. Simply having text copy that describes the home, no matter how well written it is, doesn’t do what photos and video can do.

Having your home professionally photographed is worth the time and money. If the photographer knows his/her trade well, the photos will “WOW” viewers. Even better, if a video accompanies the photos, you can place both on social media sites. Through the video, you can tell a powerful story. The agent or the homeowner can share compelling information about what makes this home unique.

In a video, you don’t want to be emotional, rather, you want to share why this home fits the audience you are targeting. That means you need to know your audience. The same goes for the photo.

At the heart of your marketing should be images that tell a story in photos that convey why this home is a “must-have”. Of course, searching for a home is still ultimately based on these parameters (which are usually entered-into a search engine): price, location, square footage, number of bathrooms and bedrooms, pool, etc. Once those parameters have been met and a filtered list of homes is shown, then it comes down to the photos and videos. Potential buyers don’t want to waste their time physically driving to homes that aren’t what they are looking for. So the better quality the photos, the better results in sales.

What makes quality photos? Good lighting, interesting angles, non-cluttered rooms, color, depth (size of room space), and overall exceptional quality of the image and video. That means the ISO, can’t be too high or you’ll experience a lot of “noise” (dark areas) in the photo. Raising the electronic gain too much on the video camera can make the video quality poor.

Unless, you’re an excellent or pro photographer/videographer, don’t attempt to photograph your home yourself. These photos are vital to the sale of your home. They’re the marketing materials that will enhance the copy that’s written about your home. And, again, the video and photos are often the enticement to actually get potential buyers in the door to make an offer.

Prepare for the professional photographers and videographers. Before your photo experts arrive, be sure to make a list of suggested angles and areas to shoot. Think about where you have your morning coffee. Is it outside on the deck overlooking an amazing sunrise? If so, even though that isn’t specifically a photo of the home, it’s a photo that tells a story about the home–be sure to have the sunrise photographed. The message in the photo and video will tell a story about the kind of experience buyers will have in this home when they buy it. And, that is definitely worth a thousand words.

Market Commentary for the Week of March 2nd

This week has seven relevant reports for the markets to digest with two being considered highly important. The rest of the reports are moderate to fairly important to the markets, meaning they have the potential to affect mortgage rates but usually don’t cause a noticeable change. The most important data comes early and late in the week, but sizable moves in stocks can impact bond trading and mortgage rates any day.

January’s Personal Income and Outlays data will start the week’s activities at 8:30 AM ET Monday morning. This data gives us an indication of consumer ability to spend and current spending habits. Current forecasts call for an increase in income of 0.4% while spending is expected to slip 0.1%. Lower levels of income means consumers have less money to spend. And weaker levels of consumer spending helps limit overall economic growth, making long-term securities such as mortgage-related bonds more attractive to investors. Therefore, the weaker the readings, the better the news it would be for mortgage rates.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) will release their manufacturing index for February late Monday morning. This index measures manufacturer sentiment and can have a pretty large impact on the financial and mortgage markets if it varies from forecasts. It is expected to show a small decline from January’s 53.5 to 53.0 this month. This is important because a reading above 50.0 means more surveyed manufacturers felt business improved during the month than those who felt it had worsened, meaning growth is likely in the manufacturing sector. If we see a weaker than expected reading, the bond market could rally. This is especially true if we see a reading below 50.0 that would point towards manufacturing sector contraction. But, a much higher than forecasted reading could lead to major selling in bonds, causing mortgage rates to rise Monday morning. One of the reasons this data is considered so important is the fact that it is usually the first monthly report posted that covers the preceding month. It is traditionally posted the first business day of the month, allowing for a current snapshot of conditions in the manufacturing sector.

This week has a couple of private sector employment-related reports due to be posted. The biggest one comes Wednesday morning from payroll processor ADP who will announce their change in private-sector payrolls processed last month. Since it is not a government agency report, it isn’t considered to be highly important however, as with any employment-related data it does draw some attention. This is especially true for this report because it is posted just a couple days before monthly employment figures are released by the Labor Department. I personally believe it is given more attention than it really deserves, particularly because many use it to predict the monthly government figures but often fail miserably. Still, if it shows a noticeable variance from expectations, it will likely cause movement in the markets and mortgage rates.

The Fed Beige Book is the next report scheduled for release and it will be posted Wednesday afternoon. This report details economic activity throughout the country by Federal Reserve region. The Fed relies heavily on this data during their FOMC meetings, so look for a potential reaction during afternoon trading Wednesday. It probably will not cause a major sell off in the stock or bond markets, but it is still worth watching.

Thursday has two reports scheduled for release, but neither is considered to be highly important. The first is the revised Productivity index for the 4th Quarter of last year. The preliminary reading posted last month showed a decline of 1.8% in worker output. Analysts are expecting to see a downward revision of 0.5% to last month’s initial reading. Employee productivity is watched fairly closely because a higher level of output per hour is believed to mean that the economy can expand without inflation concerns. However, since this data is quite aged now, it likely will have little impact on Thursday’s mortgage rates unless it shows a significant change.

The second report of the day is January’s Factory Orders at 10:00 AM ET, which will give us a measurement of manufacturing sector strength. This data is similar to last week’s Durable Goods, except this report covers orders for both durable and non-durable goods. Current forecasts are calling for an increase in new orders of approximately 0.7%. A smaller than expected increase would be good news for the bond market and could lead to an improvement in mortgage rates since it would point towards economic weakness.

The biggest news of the week comes early Friday morning when one of the single most important monthly reports we see will be posted. The Labor Department will release February’s Employment report at 8:30 AM ET Friday. Some of the important portions of the report will give us the unemployment rate, number of new jobs added or lost and the average hourly earnings reading. The best combination for the bond market and mortgage rates would be an increase in the unemployment rate, a much smaller increase in payrolls than expected and little or no increase in earnings. Current forecasts are calling for a 0.1% decline in the unemployment rate of 5.7% and approximately 240,000 new jobs added to the economy. Stronger than expected readings will likely fuel a stock market rally and selling in bonds that would cause a sizable upward revision to mortgage rates. On the other hand, disappointing numbers would raise concerns about the economy’s ability to continue to grow that would have an opposite impact on the markets and mortgage pricing.

Overall, look for a fairly active week in the markets and mortgage rates, especially the early and latter days. Friday is the most important day of the week due to the significance of that day’s data but we could also see a noticeable move in rates Monday. The lightest day will probably be Tuesday unless something unexpected happens. With data or relevant reports being posted four of five days and some of that data considered key, it would be prudent to maintain contact with your mortgage professional if still floating an interest rate and closing soon.