Sunday, November 14, 2010

America's real mortgage rate

Mortgage rates dropped to another record low this week following the Fed's move to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy. Though officials hope that buying Treasuries with newly-printed money will give the slow-growing economy a big boost, the move likely won't give today's homeowners much relief.

Now is one of the cheapest times in decades to finance a home, but few are actually locking in record low mortgage rates. This isn't just because many don't qualify for refinancing as home prices plummet and banks continue to enforce tighter lending standards.

It's also because many owners who locked in relatively low rates between 2003 and 2005 don't think it's worth refinancing, according to a U.S. Federal Reserve study of the mortgage market released in September. This is a factor that has largely been overlooked.

1 comment:

  1. This is very interesting article because brings into the light the feds actions as they increase money supply and try to spur economic growth. But as we read it we see that there polices have had very little effect one raising the numbers or amount of mortgages being written....there seems to be a disconnected.

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