Atlanta Mortgage Rate Update - 4/10/2006

Atlanta Mortgage Rates were up again last week about another 1/8%. Most of the damage was done on Friday after the latest employment reports were released. Essentially, the employment news came in as expected. The bond market briefly breathed a sigh of relief before news from Japan came in and caused bond prices to fall rapidly on Friday morning.

Rumor in Japan is that the Japanese equivalent of the Federal Reserve is going to begin a campaign to increase rates on Japanese bonds. This is bad news for US bonds as many of the buyers of our bonds are foreign investors. As other countries raise the yeilds on their bonds, ours become less attractive. A similar situation developed earlier this year with European bonds.

The big news this week will be Thursday morning's Retail Sales report. If things continue to heat up in the retail sector, expect another week of mortgage rate increases. We anticipate rates will continue to move upward until we see consistent news that the economy is slowing….