Mortgage Rates Back to Lows of the Week; Distressed Loans Back to Pre-Crisis Levels; Freddie Expands LTVs

Mortgage Rates Back to Lows of the Week; Distressed Loans Back to Pre-Crisis Levels; Freddie Expands LTVs

Mortgage rates finally held their ground today, earning back some of the ground lost over the past 3 days. While a substantial gap remains between today and last week's lows, rates did manage to fall in line with Tuesday's (the lowest so far this week). Mortgage rates improve when trading levels in the underlying bond market--specifically, mortgage-backed-securities (MBS)--improve. Today's bond market improvements were swift. On those occasions, it can take lenders some time to adjust rate sheets accordingly. In other words, if bond markets simply held steady, lenders would likely be able to bring rates lower still . While lenders did reissue improved rate sheets at some point today, most seemed a bit more cautious than normal in that regard. This is quite common in the wake of the sort of