Boston Massachusetts Mortgage Rate Update is a resource for potential Homeowners and current Mortgage Borrowers to understand what economic data is relevant and what the situation is with mortgage Interest Rates. Brian Cav will provide a opinion as to whether you should lock or float your Home Mortgage.

The nation’s homebuilders are throwing their support behind a $6 billion proposal to provide rebates to homeowners who make energy-saving home improvements.
President Barack Obama announced the so-called ‘Cash for Caulkers’ program earlier this week.
Economists for the National Association of Home Builders estimate that every $1 billion in remodeling and home improvement activity generates 11,000 jobs, [...]

From today’s Boston Herald: Film celebrates long history of Hub department store. A one-hour documentary about the original Filene’s Basement in Boston’s Downtown Crossing will premiere this spring. More than five years in the making, the film recounts the now-closed Basement’s history and stories of its workers and shoppers – including, “60 Minutes” newsman [...]

What music does the IRS play when they put you on hold?
Answer: Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Yes, the same IRS with enough individual forms to decimate an entire rain forest came up with: one song. Therefore, you hear “The March” ad nauseum for the entire duration of your stay on hold. Which could be hours – [...]

From the Boston Business Journal:
Online job postings — a key barometer for future hiring —have plummeted roughly 25 percent in Boston and surrounding areas since the credit crisis took root last year, another sign that the economy has a long way to go, in terms of recovery.
In fact, the fall off in demand among potential [...]

Bottoming out (or not)
The latest conventional wisdom is that the avalanche of layoffs seems to be tapering off. Job losses are still heavy, nationwide and in Boston, but not as bad as a few months ago.
But the New York Times’ economics writers came across an interesting blog written by Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard economist, [...]

The Massachusetts unemployment rate increased to 8 percent in April from 7.7 percent in March, the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development reported today.
The March rate was originally estimated at 7.8 percent, the office added.
The national unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent in April from 8.5 percent in March, the office said [...]

Interesting article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal today regarding Wall Street brokers.
Summary:
* In April, 2,800 people registered as brokers in the U.S. left the industry.
* The total number of departures so far this year 11,600
* 35,000 will exit by the year end.
Read more: The Wall Street Journal

About 265 Massachusetts employees have lost their jobs under the latest round of cutbacks at the struggling Sovereign Bank.
Sovereign, which late last year announced 1,000 layoffs, said yesterday it was immediately slashing an additional 950 jobs across the company’s eight-state footprint.
Read more