Mortgage Rates May Be at Bottom

by Steve Heideman on March 30, 2009

  

From an economic standpoint, last week was an interesting one. The stock markets made strong gains last week but the mortgage markets barely moved in the wake of the Treasury’sMortgage Rates may be on the Rise “toxic asset” plan.

Amongst the other news from last week:

  • Existing home sales showed unexpected strength
  • New home sales showed unexpected strength
  • Data showed home prices rising unexpectedly
  • Consumer confidence rose unexpectedly, too.

To rate shoppers, these “unexpected” developments are warnings worth heeding because mortgages trade on expectations of the future. And “the future”, you’ll remember was widely presumed to be an economic nightmare.  This is one of the big reasons that mortgage rates have been so low over the last several weeks. With things outside of the auto industry coming in better than expected, we might start seeing mortgage rates creep up a bit.  This sentiment was echoed by Freddie Mac interim chief John Koskinen Friday. He stated that home loan rates are near their bottom and any further decreases will be small.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Mortgage News

Related posts:

  1. Mortgage Rates are at 50 year lows!
  2. Are we Moving Further and Further from those 4.5% Mortgage Rates we’ve Been Hearing About?
  3. Mortgage Rates, Geithner, China and You
  4. Well, it’s official – it’s a Recession!! What does it mean for Mortgage Rates?
  5. Mortgage Rates up 6 Weeks in a Row
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

1 Christian April 3, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Well right, I mean how much lower could they really go? No one’s really talking about how much *upward* pressure there is on rates. At some point, they’re going to have to put the brakes on…if they want to avoid runaway inflation anyway.

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