Mortgage Rates Lowest in 2 Weeks; California Home Prices Turning a Corner?

Mortgage Rates Lowest in 2 Weeks; California Home Prices Turning a Corner?

Mortgage rates moved lower today as financial markets roared back to life after the winter break. In this age of ever-increasing automation and digital connectivity, it would be easy to assume that financial markets continue to hum along in the background even as the rest of the world takes some time off during the holidays. The truth is that financial markets are greatly affected by the Christmas/New Years holiday season and that's readily apparent in today's mortgage rates. Mortgage rates are primarily a function of mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) prices. Most days, there is a stable connection between the two (in that a certain amount of movement in MBS tends to correspond with a certain amount of movement in mortgage rates). If we were to solely base our assumptions on that relationship