| If you have been hoping interest rates would drop your | | | | September 18th |
| prayers have been answered. Interest rates | | | | 30-yr $1170.96 |
| plummeted over half a point last week falling from 6.35 | | | | 15-yr $1618.29 |
| to 5.78. The last time mortgage interest rates fell this | | | | 5-yr ARM $1157 |
| fast this quickly was the beginning of 1995 when rates | | | | 1-yr ARM $1077.31 |
| fell from 8.32 to 7.57. Rates have basically fallen | | | | September 11th |
| following the government takeover of Freddie Mac | | | | 30-yr $1190.11 |
| and Fannie Mae. Below are the rates for the major | | | | 15-yr $1638.41 |
| mortgage products for the last two weeks. | | | | 5-yr ARM $1182.43 |
| September 18, 2008 | | | | 1-yr ARM $1099.45 |
| 30-yr 5.78 15-yr 5.35 5-yr ARM 5.67 1-yr ARM 5.03 | | | | So the obvious thing to see here is that the now lower |
| September 11, 2008 | | | | interest rates have had a large effect on mortgage |
| 30-yr 5.93 15-yr 5.54 5-yr ARM 5.87 1-yr ARM 5.21 | | | | payments. A mortgage with a 30 year interest rate |
| 30 Year mortgage rates fell less this week (.15 points) | | | | dropped from 1281.28 to 1170.96 (9.1 percent) in the last |
| compared to last week (.42 points). 15 year and 5 year | | | | month and a half. So that brings up the point that it's |
| arms both fell about .2 points this week. 1 Year arms | | | | probably a good point to start looking at refinancing |
| which was the only major product to not fall last week | | | | your mortgage even if you received a mortgage |
| fell .18 points this week. The other interesting point is | | | | somewhat recently. |
| that because interest rates were falling before the | | | | So what is in store for the market in the next few |
| Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeover (based on | | | | weeks? It's hard to tell but the market is very volatile. |
| rumors of the takeover) rates have fallen an incredible | | | | One day the stock market drops 400 points because |
| amount (.74 points for 30 year rates) over the last | | | | Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt. Then the |
| month and a half. | | | | government proposes to takeover the bad mortgage |
| Ok so let's see what these drops mean as far as a | | | | debt and the market rises. Because of this volatility if |
| mortgage payment. Using our free mortgage calculator | | | | you are thinking of refinancing I might lock in to an |
| lets look at a payment based on a 200k loan. We will | | | | interest rate now because its hard to know what |
| run the numbers based on today's mortgage rates for | | | | rates are going to be like in a few weeks. |
| today and last week | | | | |