According to Peter Hooper, a chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., if the Fed and the government abruptly stop the two stimulus programs that are in place to help the recovery of the housing market the currently mortgage rates may go up by a half to one percentage point. Hooper is a former Fed official and refers to the First Time Home Buyer $8,000 dollar tax credit and Fed's buying of mortgage backed securities that has helped to keep today's mortgage rates low.

When I am advising a client as to the best way to price their loan we usually look at three options. The most popular option is a mortgage loan with “no points”. This means there is no broker origination fee. The second most popular option is to price the loan with the lowest interest rate by “buying the rate down” by paying a point. This means inclusion of 1% of loan amount fee.

Mortgage bankers made an average profit of over $1,088 on each loan they originated in the first quarter of 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). This profit marks a marked improvement over the 4th quarter 2008 results in which average profits were $148 per loan, according to the MBA's Quarterly Mortgage Bankers Performance Report. This new report measures the performance of independent mortgage bankers and subsidiaries of banks, thrifts and hedge funds.

One would think that after yesterday's MBA report today's mortgage rates would have fallen further or at least stayed flat. However, that's not the case. The current mortgage rates in Zillow's national average graph show that they inch up.

Today's mortgage rates came slightly down after the news that last week's rising loan rates have slowed the demand for the new mortgages and houses. The Mortgage Bankers Association said this morning that due to the shortened banking period of last week and the rising rates in the past few days the demand for new loans has dropped by eight percent.

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke said today that the recession “Is very likely over” but job losses will continue to rise. Isn’t that like saying, I am in better shape now but I am still getting fatter? Of all the statistics that we hear about there are a few that hit home more than others. For me, being a mortgage broker, the interest rate is still the most important number in my life.

While the general trend with the current mortgage rates in the past few months have been pretty stable, Zillow shows that today's mortgage rates are nationally sharply up. That has actually been the direction in the past two three days according to Zillow graph.

The current mortgage rates that we see from today's major mortgage providers show one interesting trend. We can say that they have been trading from flat to downward direction.

A new website introduced by the Obama Administration is designed to help more people in making home affordable for them. The website is makinghomeafforable.gov. It is designed to help homeowners obtain a better loan so they can better afford their mortgage and even prevent a possible foreclosure.

Long-term mortgage rates continued to trickle down last week. It was a very slight drop, but as current mortgage rates remain near historic lows, interest in home sales will continue to rise, perhaps helping the economy bounce back faster.

As current mortgage rates in U.S. moved downward, the average landing at 5.4 percent according to today's numbers by Bankrate, the report by the European Mortgage Federation shows that in the first quarter Swedent had the biggest decrease in in mortgage rates when considering developments on a year on year basis. The second and third places are shared between Ireland and Portugal. UK and Denmark came fourth and 5th.

Today the European Mortgage Federation released it's quarterly statistics which showed that the mortgage lending continued in EU states, but at lower pace in the first quarter of 2009. Only Italy recorded higher increase.