If higher rates cause buyers to be more discriminating, wouldn't prices drop to compensate? Not necessarily. It will mean fewer sales first. The wealthy are doing just fine, and a little blip or two in rates or prices won't deter them from buying the top-quality...
Interest Rates/Loan Limits
No Buyer Resistance
Historically it is very rare to have pricing go up 20% in a year. With prices skyrocketing, wouldn't you expect sales to slow down? Or wouldn't buyers at least become more selective when they are forced to pay substantially more, in many cases six-figures more, than...
Jumbo Rates Still Better
At first, it seemed that jumbo mortgage rates just hadn't adjusted yet. But now a month later, jumbo rates are still better than conforming rates. Here are today's rates taken from their websites (BofA just has a phone number now): Bank Conforming Rate APR Jumbo Rate...
Mortgage-Rate Panic?
Ben Bernanke's comments today have further calmed down the mortgage rates, now back under the 4.5% threshhold. Was there much panic in the last couple of weeks? Either a flood of new listings, or buyers rushing in/backing off? Not really. Here are new listings and new...
Say Hello to 5%
Another bond-market meltdown yesterday has mortgage rates knocking on the door of 5%. The mortgage market is similar to gasoline - prices shoot up instantly but are very slow to come down, if they come down at all. At this point, it would take disastrous economic...
Rates Take a Breather
The wild ride has tempered, and hopefully rates will stay in the mid-4% range: Home Mortgage Rates View More Interest Rates
Conforming & Jumbo Rates
Here's something you don't see very often. Jumbo mortgages are usually 1/2% higher than the rates for conforming loans (under $417,000). But with all the turbulence lately, jumbo mortgage rates are LOWER than a conforming rates at two of the big three banks: Bank...
Effects of Higher Rates
Hat tip to daytrip for sending in this article from money.cnn.com. An excerpt: San Diego real estate agent Jesse Zagorsky said one of his clients put in an offer on a home last Friday for $650,000, nearly $35,000 more than the home's listing price. Over the weekend,...
The Effect of Higher Rates
Talking heads discussing the impact of higher rates - one being more ARMs: The guest commentator said that we will lose 20% of the buyers if rates go over 5%, which sounded like a guess. We don't have to lose any buyers if they were just willing to look at smaller...
Historic Move in Rates
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/consumer_rates/314072.aspx Mortgage rates finally lost less ground than they have over the past few business days. The problem is that this still left room for rates to go higher at a much faster pace than normal. Some borrowers will...