17 April 2009 ? Mortgage interest rates are still holding steady and we are recommending a “cautiously” floating approach to locking loans. The mortgage bonds, which provide strong indicators of mortgage interest rates, are hovering slightly higher than a major support level, if the bonds dip below this support level we will more than likely see interest rates go higher; however, they’ve been at this level for this past week and thus our “cautiously” floating stance.

More bad housing and financial market news yesterday; the second-largest shopping mall owner, General Growth, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; new housing starts for March declined by more than 10% and are now at the second-lowest rate since World War II; building permit applications came in lower than expected; initial jobless claims dropped 53,000 to 611,000 from the previous week, quite a bit better than the 658,000 they were expecting (funny to think that jobless claims over 600,000 can be perceived as positive). On the positive side, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo both reported better than expected earnings, indicating that there historical conservative lending practices were definitely the best approach.