Mortgage rates finally managed to move lower in a small but meaningful way today--something they haven't done in more than 2 weeks!  During that time, we've seen average mortgage rates improve on 2 occasions, but in both cases, the gains were small (some lenders even went slightly higher).  That's the good news.

There are two caveats.  The first has to do with the size of today's improvement.  While it is indeed bigger than recent examples, many prospective borrowers will find it underwhelming.  In isolated cases, it may get a loan quote down to the next .125% of a percent lower, but most quotes will simply have slightly lower upfront costs (while the rate itself remains unchanged).  Looked at another way, we could say apart from yesterday, today's rates are the highest in more than 9 months.

The second caveat involves the current trend and where we go from here.  After all, maybe today is great because it's the first sign of better things to come for rates.  Enter the caveat.  If today is such a sign, we won't know it without the benefit of hindsight.  The current trend in rates is unequivocally negative and it will take more than a few medium-good days in the same week for that to change.  Until that happens, it makes the best sense to remain defensive in terms of locking vs floating.