Mortgage Rate Trends – Will Rates Go Up or Down?
October 19, 2009
Over at The Mortgage Reports blog, Dan Green keeps a close eye on interest rates and trends.
If we trust history, mortgage interest rates should continue to decline into 2010. The information in the chart below is from Freddie Mac, since 2006.
However, we’re in a different market than we have been in the past few years. There are several conditions that have an upward push on rates – the Fed is ending mortgage market support, inflation concerns on Wall Street, the weakened US Dollar.
Seasonally, rates should go down. Current conditions say they might go up. Will we break trend this year?
Hard to say. If you’re trying to time the market for the lowest rate, you’d better be paying close attention. As should your lender, to alert you in time for you to lock your rate.
Check out the full story here.
What Kind of Financing do Central Tucson Home Buyers Use?
October 6, 2009
I was talking to someone the other day about the current market in Tucson and about home buyers having more cash than before, and using more FHA financing than ever before. Clearly, there’s been a large change in home financing rules. In my recent experience, I’m helping people buy homes here in Central Tucson largely with FHA financing – or with cash.
So I ran some numbers this morning. Because that’s what I do.
So far, in 2009, the financing for closed home sales in Central Tucson break down like so:
- 263 cash transactions, with an average sale price of $144,401, which is 30% of the sales.
- 342 conventional loan transactions, with an average sale price of $223,091, which is 39% of the sales
- 246 FHA transactions, with an average sale price of $157,661, which is 28% of the sales
- Compare that to 2007, where cash transactions were 13% of the market, conventional sales were a whopping 82% of the market, and FHA was a mere 2% of sales in Central Tucson.
And in 2005, FHA was just 1% of the Central Tucson market. (Conventional was still 82% and cash was 14% of sales.)
Big shift? Yes indeed. The cash is back – but it’s quiet cash and those folks are picking up the bargains, many of them investment properties. And FHA is bigger than ever. If you’re trying to sell a home in Central, it might behoove you to make sure the house will meet FHA financing requirements. Otherwise, you’re cutting out a large chunk of the home buyers out there today.
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