Monday, March 21, 2011
Mortgage rates:
- 30 yr fixed, 4.79%
- 15 year 3.99%
The Fed announced that it will sell its $142B MBS portfolio it acquired in the financial meltdown from AIG. It intends to sell $10B a month as long as market conditions can handle it. The Fed believes it will make a profit on the sales.
Feb existing home sales
Total sales volume was down 9.6% to $4.88 mil from $5.40 mil in January (January data revised up).
The February median sales price was $156,100 the lowest since Apr 2002 and down -5.2% from Feb 2010. There is an 8.6 month supply at current sales rate - an increase of 3.5% from January.
Distressed Properties
39% of sales in Feb were distressed properties, the highest since Apr 2009.
Not exactly a good housing report, but it didn’t phase the stock indexes. The DJIA actually improved after the report. Definitive news is better than speculation, I guess…
Photo from www.freefoto.com
