30-year treasury bond were 5.08% on 7/31/06
10-year treasury note were 4.99% on 7/31/06
1-year treasury security were 5.22% weekly on 7/22/06
6-month/year libor were 5.548/5.590 on 7/31/06

Mortgage rates (HSH)
     6.71% 30-yr fixed
     6.33% 15-yr fixed
     5.86% 1-yr adjustable         
as of 7/31/06

Federal funds target rate are 5.25% since 6/28/06

Prime rate is 8.25% since 6/28/06

Lenders sent more default notices to homeowners statewide, up 10.5 percent from the previous quarter and 67.2 percent from the second quarter of last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems. Last quarter’s year-over-year increase was the highest for any quarter since DataQuick began tracking defaults in 1992.  However, the second quarter surge, defaults remained below historically normal levels.

It is an interesting trend to watch but it does not spell gloom and doom since the spike in defaults is mainly due to slowing price appreciation. It makes it harder to sell homes and pay off the lender.

Though those numbers are important and we should keep a close look at, we cannot entirely base our opinions on them to predict the future state of the market.

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