When it comes to mortgage rates, Thursdays frequently lend themselves to a discussion about fact versus fiction (or “delayed fact” as it may be) in news headlines. Reasons for this are laid out in detail here.
For those who don’t click links, here’s the short version: many reporters rely on Freddie Mac’s weekly rate survey for one big weekly update on mortgage rates. The survey is out on Thursday mornings, but most responses are in early in the week. Bottom line: if rates move much on Tue/Wed/Thu, news headlines may indicate a big move in the opposite direction from reality.
The current example isn’t quite as bad as last week’s, but it’s still wrong. The survey said rates were sharply higher this week, but they’re still lower for the average lender. One reason for the smaller discrepancy is that rates have indeed been moving higher over the past 2 days. Change hasn’t been extreme, but it has lifted the average lender back up from the brink of the “high 4%” range seen last Thursday.
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