Friday’s Rain City Rates
Rhonda Porter on 03 27, 2009
Mortgage rates have been pretty steady (knock on wood) lately with this rate’s post being very similar to what I quoted last week at Rain City Guide. We are still waiting for revised High Balance Conforming loan limits–I’m betting this will take place wide-spread on the weekend of April 4, 2009 when Fannie Mae does their next scheduled update of underwriting guidelines. Meanwhile, I have one lender offering $506k+ high balance loans at a 0.5% higher rate.
Conforming Mortgage Rates (loan amounts up to $417,000 for 1-unit properties). The conforming rate quote below is based on owner occupied with a mid-low credit score of 740 or higher, “full doc” purchase with a sales price of $500,000 and a loan amount of $400,000 single family dwelling (non condo). This scenario includes reserves (taxes & insurance) not being waived. Rates quoted are priced based on a 30 day closing with no prepayment penalties on any of the rates quoted below.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 4.625% (APR 54.762%). Same as quoted on last weeks post.
15 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 4.375% (APR 4.612%).
Conforming High Balance Rates. Pricing is based on the same criteria above except where the loan amount is $417,001 – $506,000 for properties in King, Snohomish or Pierce Counties; specifically priced for a sales price of $625,000 and a $500,000 loan amount. Note: still waiting for the revised 2009 High Balance Conforming loan limits of $567,500 to be available.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 4.875% (APR 5.008%). 
0.125 to rate
FHA. Pricing based on credit score of 620 or better and loan amounts up to $417,000 for FHA in King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 4.875% (APR 5.539%).
FHA-Jumbo/High Balance. Pricing based on loan amounts from $417,001 – $567,500 for King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.000% (APR 5.662%).
VA. Pricing based on credit scores of 620 or better based on loan amounts up to $417,000. VA loan amounts over $417,000 are also available.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 4.875% (APR 4.981%). 0.125 to rate
Prime Rate (what HELOCs are based on): 3.25%
This is just a small sample available of rates and products. This is not a guarantee nor is it a commitment of interest rate. Rates are as of Friday, March 27, 2009 at 12:45 p.m. and may change at any time. Available programs may change at anytime as well. Check out RCG’s new Mortgage Info page for live rate quotes via my Twitter feed.
About the Author: Rhonda Porter
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Rhonda:
Your APR is WAY off on the 30 yr fixed conforming, unless you plan on charging $48,000 in fees. I doubt that very much!
I think it was wrong last week, too, thought I pointed that out….
Hi Roger, thanks…I was in a hurry and made a typo. This serves as an opportunity to remind people that shopping by APR is not the way to select your mortgage professional…
Using APR to evaluate a loan is a complete waste of time, and is often used to deliberately confuse borrowers. Worse, the law allows it.
I realized that I had started to tell you of the typo last week, but never hit send…
I have followed your Friday posts for at least a year, and the rates have been consistently reasonable, verifiable, and clearly stated.
Roger, I really appreciate you catching that for me.
I certainly hope you are right. I really appreciate that you offer not only your opinion, but you also offer a very good explanation why you believe this, and evidence to back it up.
Portland Real Estate, technically I could quote the rates above based on the seller paying all the closing costs and reducing the APR… I don’t do that. It is easy manipulated.
I also believe that people should not select their mortgage advisor by interest rate since it’s a moving target–how you can pick who you’re going to work with for 30-60 days (sometimes longer for a buying getting ready to purchase a home) based on a figure that changes on average 3-5 times a day in this market? It’s as crazy as picking a real estate agent by who says they’ll list a home for the highest amount (woops…guess some people do that too).
Last week, one of the lenders we work with was offering the revised 2009 loan limits for conforming… they just retracted it effective immediately.
Interesting. What do you think is happening, Rhonda?
Jillayne, before I received this alert today, I was assuming that we were just waiting for Fannie to do their latest underwriting updates over the weekend of April 4… I don’t like the use of the word “uncertainty”…and FHA/HUD has all ready adapted the revised 2009 limits a while ago.
I just received this update from Fannie Mae regarding the revised 2009 loan limits:
With an effective date of May 1, 2009; we should start to see the higher conforming high balance rates soon.
Rhonda,
If you have any info on “additional appraisal requirements” can you let us know? Appraisals seem to be taking a lot longer, especially as to appraiser showing up a the property. I tried using longer closing times, but that didn’t help as it seems they use close date for scheduling purposes.
Depending on the lender it seems to take 2-3 weeks for the appraiser to get over to the property these days…or longer. This is a big change from the same lender who back in summer of 2008 finished the appraisal in less than 24 hours and didn’t even go to the property. Now they are backed up for weeks. Could be the difference between 50% and 20% down.
Ardell, It’s possible that your appraisal was an exterior only (if not waived). Appraisals are taking longer partly because of new requirements for declining areas (I will write a post at RCG)… FHA just adopted these guidelines as well which require additional comps, including active listings/pending sales. Add to that, appraisers are probably putting more into their work to support any values due to our current climate and underwriters are going over appraisals with a fine tooth comb. It’s not unusual to have an underwriter require additional comps from an appraiser if not a second appraisal.
Another factor is I wouldn’t be suprised if many seasonsed appraisers are getting out of the business with HVCC getting closer. Why would they want to do twice as much work for half the money with the Appraisal Management Companies taking about $200 per appraisal from the appraisal. It’s garbage…it really is.
Another factor is that the market is inundated with refinances (and more purchases). I’d like to think that every aspect of the industry prioritizes purchases over refinances…but it’s probably not the case. Especially if the appraiser is trying to plan their week geographically. I’m sure they’re short staffed and not able to hire (thanks again to the uncertainty of HVCC).
I am ordering appraisals as soon as possible so we have time to deal with additional requests from underwriting (underwriting is also taking longer).
Knock on wood, the only delayed purchase I’ve had (since I can remember) was due to a builder not completing the FHA required forms correctly (he thought he could create his own columns instead of answering “yes” or “no”)…and the escrow officer decided to certify the Note with her autograph on the front page and declined to call us to see if we’d accept it.
HVCC is really going to screw up purchases and refinance transactions, Ardell. The AMC’s won’t care about your closing date–it’s going to turn the system into a bunch of cogs. My appraiser does not work by closing date, we request to have the appraisal back in 2 weeks and so far, he’s been able to do that. He also lets me know if he’s getting backlogged and if we need to plan on more time. That’s what’s nice about having an established relationship and being able to communicate directly with an appraiser. Once HVCC is in effect, I won’t even know who the appraiser is until we have the appraisal in our hands.