Oh yea, the European crisis continues-now Italy's debt problems are on the front burner, and if you thought the Greek debt issue was big, that is a hiccup compared to Italy, as Greece's economy is much smaller than Italy's-much smaller-it's like comparing Rhode Island to Texas.  Not sure what the European Central Bank, and other countries, including the USA, are thinking-we are shoring up to bail them out, when we don't have enough to even pay our own debt load.  Not making sense to me, but we'll have to wait and see how deep we and other countries have to dig into our pockets for Greece and Italy and make no mistake-Portugal and Spain's issues will be coming to the forefront soon also.  Sigh......give us strength.  The good news is that Italy is responding to this much stronger and sooner than Greece is-they know they have to and have started to establish a new government, in hopes of handling their financial difficulties as well as possible.  Greece's Prime Minister was forced to stand down, and a new interim Prime Minister is in place there now.  Wow-it's big and it's bad and scary.

Rates improved with the debt crisis issues-remember, bad news in the economy sends investor money moving to the relatively safe haven of bonds, so rates improve.  Just when we thought we would have a good dip in rates though, the bond market reversed as a result of a poorly received auction of 10 year notes.  The market isn't always behaving as expected.  We should have gone down in rates further, but market resistance is there, with investors protecting their money and really nervous.  Rates are currently at 4.25% with 0 points for well qualified buyers.

Jobless claims came in at 390,000-below the mental water mark of 400k, but still not good.  In addition, foreclosures were up 10% in October over September, so we're still in the thick of it and it's not pretty.

Keep the faith, and please give me a call when you and your clients need expert mortgage assistance.  I have the experience and resources to assist them in navigating the market effectively, and I'm happy and able to help.

Cherie' McKeage