Two pieces of news this week give you a fresh reason to talk about program fit instead of rate alone! UWM said it will now pull both FICO and VantageScore on every file and automatically use the better result, a day after Pennymac took VantageScore 4.0 across every channel. And HUD raised the upfront guarantee fee on new Section 184 firm commitments from 1.00% to 1.50% as of October 1, which changes cash to close for every Section 184 borrower who doesn't have a firm commitment yet. Both are reminders that the number on a rate sheet is only part of what a borrower pays. Dated beats to pre-write for: jobless claims and the Freddie Mac survey on October 8, and CPI in the October 10 to 15 window.
On rates, Bankrate's conventional 30-year reads 7.52% this morning, flat on the day and 3 bps under the top of its 90-day range of 6.57% to 7.55%. Rates have moved up over the past month, so a refinance pitch has little to stand on today. Program fit does: Bankrate shows FHA at 7.23% and VA at 7.26%, under the conventional 30-year, and on a $400,000 loan FHA's principal and interest runs about $2,723 a month against about $2,802 conventional. Mortgage insurance closes or widens that gap depending on credit score and down payment, and that is exactly the conversation worth marketing: you run every option to the full monthly payment so the borrower doesn't have to guess.
The tactical move is a short "lowest rate isn't always lowest payment" post, paired with an offer to build a personal side-by-side. Keep the dollar figures example-based and send the full comparison privately, file by file, rather than publishing a payment in the post itself. For the in-flight pipeline, reach active purchase files that could fit more than one program before the next round of numbers lands.
Record a 30-second video on why the lowest rate isn't always the lowest payment, post it, and send a personal side-by-side to every active purchase file that qualifies for both FHA and conventional!