Rates Predicted to Stay Low
Thursday, September 23, 2010
I spoke recently with my friend and lender, Laura Seefeldt of Johnson Bank and asked her if she’d write a guest column for my newsletter. If you are in a position to purchase, it is an excellent time. Laura predicts the rates to stay low. Did you know if the interest rate increases just 1%, you will pay 10% more for the property? Take a look at what Laura shares…………………..
I was recently in another meeting where we were talking about some upcoming changes that the Federal government is going to implement regarding the disclosure of costs and fees, interest rates, points, etc to the mortgage consumer. This comes on the heels of many previous changes in the structure, disclosure and underwriting of all mortgage loan applications. The government continues to require more and more disclosure to the consumer along with tighter underwriting standards and higher fees as it relates to loan to value (low down payments), credit score (above 740 is best), property type (condominiums and investment property) among many other factors.
So as I was thinking about how to reply to Connie’s request for a peek in the future and forecast into the remainder of 2010 and into 2011, I recalled this meeting along with the events of this past year believe we will continue to see the trend of tweaking and tightening the current regulations.
During this meeting we also discussed the direction of interest rates and were informed that Freddie Mac forecasts that mortgage rates will be in the 4.5% - 5.0% range over the next 3-6 months. However, much will depend on the continued willingness of the Chinese to purchase US Treasuries and the overall recovery of our economy which remains sluggish at best. Two factors that continue to drag the economy is jobs (unemployment at 9.6%) and home values. A total of 716,128 homes were seized from delinquent homeowners during the first 8 months of this year. That’s almost 3,000 a day!!
Further, in the US today there are 3 million job openings and 15 million unemployed. That’s 5 out of work Americans for every 1 job opening.
Laura Seefeldt
JOHNSON BANK
