Tom

Conforming jumbos are NOW available. Call your mortgage broker. With the sudden decrease in rates yesterday, we were quoted 5.7 to 5.8 for a loan between 417k and 729k. No one knows where this rate is going to go from here. A friend re-financed at 5.5, with no points. - Tue Mar 18 2008, 23:49

My understanding is that it will still take a while for the jumbo conforming loans to be available to the consumer because the government still needs to work out details - time frame is not knowable for certain. If you can, call as many brokers/banks as possible because some are offering quasi-conforming deals with certain parameters in anticipation of the jumbo comforming category but these deals are not common. If your property is in west LA I believe the loan will also fall into a "declining market" category and therefore require a lower loan to value ratio (which means a higher downpayment). I'm sure it will all sort itself out eventually but even if you get an extension on the escrow there is certainly no guarantee that a better rate will come around. For the best rate info, check bankrate.com and check it often because there is a lot of rate volatility at this exact moment in time. And please, please shop for the best deal if you can - from my limited experience I know there is a lot of disparity out there right now in terms of what lenders are doing. - Sat Mar 8 2008, 10:40