Arizona Mortgage Rates For August 15, 2008
Mortgage Related Highlights This Week
The mortgage market was relatively calm this week compared to recent months — there were some numbers posted that normally would have moved the market, but due to conflicting data mortgage rates basically stayed flat. The big numbers for the week relating to the Arizona market were:
.8%
The CPI grew by .8% during July which was much faster than expected. Normally an inflation reading like this would have sent the mortgage market into panic mode (meaning higher rates) but the mortgage market didn’t react as expected — rates remained relatively flat. It seems that there are too many conflicting data points right now to get a crystal clear direction… although with a reading like that, I wouldn’t expect rates to go down anytime soon.
21%
According to the Phoenix Business Journal, Phoenix home prices are down 21% from a year ago.
According to the Arizona State University Repeat Sales Index, the average metro Phoenix home experienced a 21 percent price decline from May 2007 to May 2008.
That was more severe than the 18 percent drop recorded from April 2007 to April 2008, and the first-ever double-digit decline of 13 percent from March 2007 to March 2008.
55% / 185%
According to Bloomberg, the number of foreclosure default notices rose nationwide by 55% as compared to July of 2007 and bank seizures increased 184% to 77,295 — the steepest increase since reporting on this area began in 2005. In Arizona, it appears as if 7.2% of all Phoenix area homes for sale are lender owned.
“It’s getting worse,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s executive vice president for marketing, said in an interview. “The number of properties that have been foreclosed on by the banks and still haven’t sold is the highest we’ve ever seen.”
26,200
The unemployment rate rose in Arizona in July as there were 26,200 jobs lost in the month. As the housing industry contracts, this number is not surprising due to the number of housing-related jobs in Arizona.
And finally — a little bit of good news (we promised to try to find some last week) –last week we talked about Fannie Mae implementing an “adverse market fee” starting October 1 which will make mortgages more expensive for consumers. This week, we got a notice saying that Fannie Mae was pushing back the effective date to November 1 — and we have seen some investors roll back their pricing increases as a result.
Not a lot of good news, but a little!
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