Mortgage rates held steady today, despite a key report from the Labor Department showing stronger-than-expected job creation in February.  Typically, a strong jobs report is bad for rates.  This one likely would have been bad as well, but markets got advance notice from another report earlier in the week.  

Remember Wednesday's ADP data?  It thoroughly trounced the 190k expectation, coming in at 298k.  Given that the ADP data attempts to track/predict the Labor Department's report, rates were able to rise preemptively before this morning's data ever came out.  With the official numbers not quite as stellar as ADP suggested, bond markets (and thus, mortgage rates) were able to hold their ground.

While ground-holding is good, the ground itself could be better.  Rates remain at 2017's highs with the average lender quoting conventional 30yr fixed rates of 4.375% on top tier scenarios.  A few remain at 4.25% and some are back up to 4.5%.