Posted on 08/01/2013 9:51:18 AM PDT by shove_it
Average rates on U.S. fixed mortgages ticked up this week but are still low by historical standards, a trend that has helped the housing market recover.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average on the 30-year loan rose to 4.39 percent from 4.31 percent last week. Rates are a full percentage point higher than in early May.
The average on the 15-year fixed loan increased to 3.43 percent from 3.39 percent last week...
(Excerpt) Read more at moneynews.com ...
I have refinanced everything into 3.75%.
Hell that’s below inflation.
They can make this sound bad, but I remember having a variable rate that started at 9% and could have risen to 15% if we had not done a refi. The trick to all mortgages is to only buy what one can afford. Our first house was a 900 sq. ft cinderblock home on an FHA mortgage.
I bought a brand new home in 1975, zero down FHA loan with about $800 in closing costs. It was three bedroom, two bath with a single garage and about 1200 square feet. The price was $29,500 and the interest rate was 9.25%.
>>Our first house was a 900 sq. ft cinderblock home on an FHA mortgage.
I hear you. We moved from a 1650 sq. ft new house (30 year) to a 1300 sq. ft foreclosure (15 year w/ down payment) and have already paid off 1/4th the house in two years.
As I pay off my master’s degree loans, the mortgage will get paid off even faster.
Once upon a time, you had confidence that you could be gainfully employed. You expected raises and promotions and cost of living increases. New business would start up, with new opportunities. America was growing, and each generation would be richer than the previous generation. Getting a house and taking on debt made sense -- you had a bright future ahead of you.
Today, workforce participation is way down, inflation is up, bank accounts pay virtually no interest, the stock market seems to make little sense, Everyone and everthing is deeply in debt, and the future looks pretty grim. Promotions? Raises? Lots of people have been flat (or worse) for quite some time. They're just happy they have some kind of job.
Taking on a great big debt with 5% interest? It's just not appealing.
About 3 months ago I refinanced from a 30 year 5.25% down to a 15 year 2.7%. I knocked 13 years of payments off my mortgage and kept my monthly payment the same!
Looks like we may have got it at bottom.
Good move. I had to jump thru flaming hoops to qualify for my 7.5%, 30 yr fixed loan from Countrywide back in 1998. I refied it in 2004 to a 7 year ARM which is now at 3.0% APR. Since then, I’ve been making principal only payments every month in addition to the regular payment which is now under $100.
Now that home values in my area of Florida are going back up, I’m looking into a reverse mortgage so as to start living a bit larger off the equity in my home.
Most home loans are offered at 2.5 to 3.5% above the one year LIBOR Rate which is the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. The latest one year LIBOR is 0.67319%, you can follow it here ...
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3020-moneyrate.html
(scroll down to “London interbank offered rate, or Libor”)
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