With the US Treasury purchasing $600 billion in mortgage backed securities mortgage rates are falling. There is also a plan being floated where the government would set the 30 year mortgage rate at 4.50% on home purchases – almost 1% below current market rates. The idea being of course that the whole thing started with housing, might as well end it with housing as well. I am sure we all agree that no one really knows the exact solution to cure this crisis.
Regardless here is a snapshot of how rates have fallen in the past few weeks (source: Freddie Mac Weekly Rates):
For reference Freddie Mac reported a weekly average mortgage rate of 6.100% on the first week of October. This week rates are averaging in the 5.500% range.
There are no related posts to this entry.Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
on Dec 7th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.
on Jan 11th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Your column is good to read. I have had 5 to 6 homes since 1970s. Call me an experienced home owner. No. Over 40 years I have been timely on all bill payments. Crisis. Late payments, interest rates went up; credit limits got lowered; default notices on two homes; more threats. What do I do? I negotiated lower payments on all lenders except mortgage companies Bank of A and Wells F. They don’t budge. Refin is denied due to bad and low credit score. I find FICO free wheeling. No federal law supports it. But FCRA and others protest the rating system. My family finance plan is shattered and not protected by law. Is something going on that is unconstitutional about FICO and the whole mortage system. Customers is where cash comes from and we should have a budget plan that takes into account all bills and come up with an affordable plan until crisis is over then redo another Family Budget, especially for me since we are around age 70 with fixed income. Struggling me. Doug from Albuquerque.