Mortgage Rates
By Carrie Bay | 02/02/2012
Average mortgage interest rates have reversed from the upward blip reported last week. Declines this week completely erased the previous week's increases, as the average rate attached to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, and 5-year adjustable-rate mortgage all settled in at new record lows, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. The GSE attributed the about-face to the fact that recent data on economic growth fell short of market projections.
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By Carrie Bay | 02/01/2012
President Obama on Wednesday outlined his proposal to allow millions more homeowners to cash in on today's historically low mortgage rates. He issued a call to Congress to pass legislation to establish a streamlined refinancing program through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) that would be open to all non-GSE borrowers with non-jumbo loans who are current on their payments. The program would cost $5 to $10 billion and would be paid for by imposing fees on the largest financial institutions.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/31/2012
Was the nation's second largest mortgage company betting against mortgage refinancing? Allegations supporting the affirmative which were made public this week have prompted the U.S. Treasury to launch an official probe. Analysts say the story is less sensational than it appears and only highlights the conflict that comes with being neither fully public nor fully private. The GSE's main business is guaranteeing mortgage credit risk, but it needs to turn a profit to stay in this business, all the while being told its duty is to foster a housing recovery.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/26/2012
Freddie Mac reported Thursday that mortgage interest rates have done a 180 and are now starting to climb, buoyed by positive housing data over recent weeks which show the market ended 2011 on a high note. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 10 basis points in one week's time and is now averaging 3.98 percent, reversing its previous three-week trend of setting all-time record lows. Despite the jump, this marks the eighth consecutive week the 30-year fixed rate has remained below 4.00 percent.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/25/2012
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it will hold a key benchmark interest rate near zero through 2014. The setting of this federal funds rate - the rate at which banks lend to one another - is one of the most fundamental and principal tools in the central bank's chest of economic influence. The Fed has kept the target range for the rate at 0 to 0.25 percent for three years now. The decision to maintain this range for another three years is testament to just how slow the U.S. economy's recovery is likely to be.
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By Krista Franks | 01/25/2012
Despite rumors earlier in the week that President Barack Obama would announce a settlement between the state attorneys general and the nation's top servicers in his State of the Union address, the president made no such announcement Tuesday night. However, he did announce his intention to save millions of homeowners approximately $3,000 annually on their mortgages by allowing them to refinance at today's low interest rates. Obama also plans to create a Financial Crimes Unit to protect consumers from fraud schemes.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/19/2012
Credit conditions may be tight, but for those who do qualify for a new home loan, the cost of borrowing has never been lower. Data released Thursday by Freddie Mac shows the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage edged down to 3.88 percent this week to hit a new all-time low. The 30-year rate has come in below the 4.00 percent mark for seven consecutive weeks now. The 15-year rate edged up just one basis point from its record low to 3.17 percent.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/18/2012
CoreLogic's chief economist Mark Fleming says 2012 may be the year the housing market begins to turn the corner. He notes that housing is an industry with long business cycles. Regional housing recessions typically take three to five years to find their bottom, and the national housing recession has behaved similarly in that it has bounced along a bottom for the past two years. But Fleming says he's seeing some positive indicators - both existing-home sales and single-family housing starts have begun to increase, and affordability is at an all-time high.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/12/2012
With property values across the country at depressed levels and interest rates dancing around historical lows for months now, housing affordability has hit an all-time high. That affordability inched even higher this week, as mortgage interest rates broke through their previous record-lows to fall further still. Freddie Mac says all loan products covered in its regular weekly market survey eased to set new all-time lows for the week ending January 12. The 30-year fixed rate is now at 3.89 percent.
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By Carrie Bay | 01/05/2012
Fixed mortgage rates started the year at or near their all-time record lows. Data from Freddie Mac shows the interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 3.91 percent for the week ending January 5, 2012, matching the record low set just two weeks earlier. This marks the fifth consecutive week the 30-year rate has come in below the 4.00 percent mark. The 15-year fixed-rate is averaging 3.23 percent, just two basis points above its all-time low hit in December.
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