Customers with HIGH LTV’s or Lower FICOs should lock asap!!

I touched on this two weeks ago and it bears repeating.  Many customers will see a large increase in pricing in the very near future.  Loan level price adjustments with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be going into effect for loans sold to these agencies as of April 1st, 2011.  Lenders will make price adjusments in advance of this to assure they can get their loans to these agencies in enough time without taking a hit to their profitability.  These changes will go into effect with most lenders by the end of January 2011. 

Customers that will be affected have these characteristics:

  • Higher Loan to value loans – you will get a pricing hit regardless of credit. 
  • Less than 720 FICO scores – large hit in pricing

So the vast majority of customers will see increased pricing on their mortgage quotes in the very near future.  Loan to values of 70% and higher are going to see large hits and customers with less than perfect credit scores will see very large hits.  If you are waiting to lock a purchase loan or to refinance , you may not want to wait much longer if you fit into the loan descriptions above.  Please email me if you would like to see the Fannie Mae announcement so you can review the pricing adjustments. 

There was not much movement in rates this week with the bond market staying relatively stable – 30 year fixed par rates are at 4.75% , 15 year fixed at 4.125% , 5/1 ARMS at 3.25%.  We did see a nice improvement in 20 year fixed loans dipping down to 4.5%