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The Federal Reserve did not lower interest rates this time.

admin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:12:05 +0000

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady and said the risk of inflation has grown but stopped short of signaling that higher interest rates were coming soon. The decision by the U.S. central bank, announced at the end of a two-day meeting, leaves the benchmark federal funds rate at 2 percent.

(Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/25370711 )

We shall see how this plays out, but it looks as if the long term mortgage rates will start to come back down with this news. That is great news for everyone looking to get a home loan.

Will the Feds lower interest rates again?

admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:31:24 +0000

Well, the Feds meet again this week and the big question we are looking for is if they will raise or lower the Fed funds interest rate. Have interest rates dropped too far too fast or will the economy work itself out? That remains to be seen.

As a reminder though, when you here that Feds lower (or raise) their fed funds interest rate, this does not directly affect the 15 and 30 year mortgage rates. The Fed rates are short term rates that primarily affect credit cards, home equity loans and adjustable rate mortgages.

If you are interested in what the 30-year mortgage rates are doing, get in contact with your loan officer and ask him to keep you posted on these rates. Interest rates for home loans can change every day, not just when the Feds meet. Historically, 30-year rates are still very low, although they are just slightly higher than their 40 year lows of a few years back. It is still a good time to buy or refinance a property!

Mortgage rates on the rise, US economy on the fall.

admin — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:59:54 +0000

The 30 year Fixed Rate Mortgage rate increased to 6.17 % from 5.96%, while the 15 year Fixed Rate Mortgage rate increased to 5.7 percent from 5.49 percent. One-year ARMs decreased to 6.8 percent from 6.92 percent. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, came in at 502.3, a decrease of 15.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 593.3 one week earlier. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 8.7 from 9.3 percent of total applications from the previous week.

Consumers are battling recession and inflation at the same time. The national average price of gas crossed $4 on Sunday, which translates into higher commodity and energy prices. The unemployment rate rose to 5.5 %, adding to the argument that we are unofficially in a recession.

Although the U.S. Treasury has already issued 57.4 million payments totaling about $50 billion in tax economic stimulus payments, opinion is that most of the tax incentives will be used to pay down debt and to keep pace with rising food and energy bills. Coupled with this is the fact that the economy grew at a slow pace of 0.8 %.