As is sometimes the case on Monday's, market movements and changes in Mortgages Rates are fairly subdued to begin the week.  Mortgage rates are so subdued, in fact, that they're completely unchanged from Friday's levels.  While some lenders may be offering slightly lower or higher costs, the average of all the lenders we survey resulted in the exact same Best-Execution 30yr Fixed Rate.   

Although Friday marked a noticeable improvement over Thursday, overall, rates remain near the weaker end of their February range with plenty of lenders still offering 4.0% as a Best-Execution rate despite the return of 3.875% offerings from the market leaders.

Additional reading: Previous post with more detailed discussion about Best-Execution calculations. 

Today may have been a non-event in terms of rates volatility, but the rest of the week might not be.  The Employment Situation Report on Friday is always one of the most important events of any given month for markets.  If the report shows stronger than expected job creation, the default response for MBS (the "mortgage-backed-securities" that most directly influence lender's rates) would be to weaken, thus suggesting higher rates (this dynamic isn't a hard and fast rule, but is generally true, and more reliably so the farther away the data reports from the expectations).

The other key event will be the deadline for Greece's private sector bond swap.  To oversimplify, EU officials have already decided how much of a loss will be taken by any of Greece's private sector investors (banks, insurance funds, investment firms, etc...) that decide to participate in the so-called swap (investors would swap out current bonds for the less lucrative ones, thus taking a "haircut").  If a sufficient percentage of investors acquiesce to the haircuts by Thursday, it's a net-positive for Greece and the Euro-zone, and likely another challenge for longer term rates in the US.

Today's BEST-EXECUTION Rates

• 30YR FIXED -  4.0% with 3.875% making a comeback
  
• FHA/VA -3.75%
  
• 15 YEAR FIXED -  3.25%
  
• 5 YEAR ARMS -  2.625-3.25% depending on the lender
  

Ongoing Lock/Float Considerations

• Rates and costs continue to operate near all time best levels
• Current levels have experienced increasing resistance in improving much from here
• There are technical reasons for that as well as fundamental reasons 
  
• Lenders tend to get busier when rates are in this "high 3's" level and can throttle their inbound volume by raising rates or costs.
• While we don't necessarily think rates are destined to go higher, given the above facts, there seems to be more risk than reward regarding floating
• But that will always be the case when rates operating near historic lows
• (As always, please keep in mind that our talk of Best-Execution always pertains to a completely ideal scenario.  There can be all sorts of reasons that your quoted rate would not be the same as our average rates, and in those cases, assuming you're following along on a day to day basis, simply use the Best-Ex levels we quote as a baseline to track potential movement in your quoted rate).