I want to know when mortgage rates will go down. They’ve been around 6% for a while now. When will the rate cuts affect mortgage rates?
I remember about 30-35 years ago being told that the then-current interest rates (10%) were the lowest I would ever see in my life, and I would be a fool to pass them up.
I'm sure you're serious, but you cannot believe how funny that sounds to somebody who has been in the business for 30+ years.
When I started my career at a bank in 1976, rates were at 8.5%. Within a couple of years they went over 10% and at the time I theorized that rates would NEVER be in the single digits again. By 1982 rates were over 18% and all you could get were FHA-245 (5-year graduated payment, negative amortization) loans.
When rates dropped down to 11% in 1986 I was taking mortgage applications at my office all night, often until midnight, nearly every night for months. It was insanity. When rates went up a little in the early '90s, foreclosures increased, prices dropped, and it was the end of the world. (yawn) Then voila!, rates dropped again, and all I could do was shake my head when they dropped below 10%, blowing out my long-ago prediction.
As rates crept downward throughout the late '90s and early 2000s I threw up my hands and just went with the flow - - finally refinancing my own house a few years ago (at what rate I don't remember and don't care - - 5%, 6%, 7% whatever....). I remain completely flummoxed that rates ever got below 10%. Below 8%. Below 6%. It is head-shakingly unbelievable for anybody who has been involved in the mortgage business for several decades, believe me.
I have said before and maintain to this day that ANY casual homeowner or home purchaser who took out an adjustable-rate mortgage during the past 10 years is a friggin moron.
And so, that is why I found your question amusing.
6%. Yikes.
FRegards,
LH