Although home prices have stayed steady throughout the duration of the economic shutdown, mortgage rates have plummeted. For six consecutive weeks, the average home loan interest rates remain at all-time lows.
Freddie Mac announced that 30 year fixed rate mortgages averaged at 3.18 percent for the week ending on June 4th. This time last year, the average rate was 3.82 percent. For a 15-year fixed mortgage, the average was 2.62 percent, compared to last year’s 3.28 percent.
However, in the 5 previous weeks, averages were consistently trending downward from week to week, while this week they saw an uptick. This is likely because with states reopening, people are slowly getting their jobs back. Last week, analysts had expected that the government would announce a 19 percent jobless rate. It turned out that the jobless rate was actually at a much lower (but still terrible) 13.3 percent. Wall Street flipped over the news and on Friday, June 5th, the average rate for a 30 year fixed mortgage rose to 3.24 percent.
The question is whether mortgage rates will continue to inch back up to normal as businesses continue opening back up.
According to Mortgage News Daily, rates dipped right back down on Monday the 8th, and then again on the 9th. Which poses another question: are we seeing a downward trend or is this merely a course correction from last week’s spike?
Only time will tell, but either way, these are historically low rates. If you want to take advantage of them and buy a home or rental property, email us or gives us a call at (323) 412-9060.