Current Mortgage Rates
Mortgage loan interest dropped again during week ending May 6, 2010, edging closer to the level of the lowest mortgage rates for 50 years seen in 2009, according to Freddie Mac. The most recent figure shows that the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) was exactly five percent. That's the lowest it's been for six weeks.
To put that number into context, the lowest mortgage rates for half a century occurred during week ending December 3 2009, when a 30-year FRM averaged 4.71 percent, again according to Freddie Mac's archives.
The Mortgage Bankers Association's latest mortgage loan figures covered a different period (week ending April 30), but also reflected the trend. They said that a 30-year FRM averaged 5.02 percent back then.
Good Mortgage News
Meanwhile, recent days and weeks have seen a flurry of good news for those interested in mortgages. For example, the PMI Mortgage Insurance Company's quarterly U.S. Market Risk Index was published May 3. The report, which covered the fourth quarter of 2009, found that 356 of the nation's 384 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) had a declining risk score. Those counted in the most risky category fell by 26.4 percent, while those counted among the least risky rose 79 percent.
In other words, mortgage loan insurers are more confident in homeowners' ability to repay than they have been for (what seems, at least) a very long time. PMI's press release said:
A combination of factors is leading to decreases in the risk of lower housing prices in two years in many MSAs. These factors include increasing affordability, generally improving mortgage credit quality, decreasing foreclosure rates, and a drop in excess housing supply.
Best Mortgage News
Arguably the best mortgage news--or the best real estate news, anyway--for a while came May 7, 2010 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This was the April unemployment figures, which also included an adjustment to the March data. Together these showed that the American economy had added half a million jobs in two months.
A huge proportion of those 500,000 newly employed people are likely to be homeowners who may now be able to avoid default and foreclosure. And many others may soon find themselves again able to contemplate buying a home. And that surely must mean a smaller housing inventory (fewer properties for sale), and higher prices, and in time we should see fewer mortgages "underwater".
Compare Mortgage Rates
What better time could there be to buy a home? House prices look set to rise, the economy looks set to recover, and current mortgage rates (which are within spitting distance of the lowest in recent history) look set to rise. The circumstances seem as near to perfect as you can imagine.
Seize the moment. Compare mortgage rates here, and now.
