Mortgage Rates Modestly Lower to Start New Week

Mortgage rates were lower today for the average lender, but just how low remains a matter of great debate.  To be fair, there’s no active debate raging behind the scenes.  Rather, there are a few weeks’ worth of news headlines claiming “all-time low mortgage rates,” and then there is the objective truth (which is a bit different from those news headlines).
We’ve talked about the discrepancy quite a bit recently (here is the most recent and most thorough discussion).  It has to do with 2 shortcomings of popular rate surveys: stale/limited data and a “purchase-only” focus. 
Stale data can cause problems, but it shouldn’t result in 2 consecutive weeks of erroneous conclusions about all-time low rates.  One caveat here is that the recently noted all-time lows aren’t much lower than the previous instances in early August and early September.   The “purchase-only” focus is causing an even bigger issue currently, because purchase rates are somewhat to significantly lower than refi rates, depending on the lender.
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Source: mortgagenewsdaily.comNew feed