Mortgage interest rates?

[SagaLore]

What are the rates right now? I know when I got my house 2 years ago, it was 6.75% and our FHA mortage was 7.5%. It's dropped considerably and I hear it's going to go back up soon...

 

[Zorro]

Bankrate

 

[beer]

I have plenty of spam that can promise you low, low interest rates

 

[CChaos]

I'm not picking on you Zorro so please don't interpret this that way but I'm fed up with the interest rate info I find online. I've been researching auto loans lately, and Bankrate said the best rate I can find is 4.25% for an auto loan. Well, my dealer got me 3.75% from a bank with none of this "only those with OUTSTANDING credit who opt for electronic payments qualify". My credit is good, but not great. The credit union I have access to has awful rates (7%) and two dealers offered me better rates from Chase (4.49% and 4.9%) than Chase themselves even told me was available. They say thier best is like 5.29%. I don't believe most of what I read but I wouldn't mind being able to believe some of it.

Rates are a little under 6% now. They shot up this summer but have been steady and even dipping a little lately. As far as I can tell they are likely to creep back up but slowly thanks to the likelihood of the Fed holding rates the same for awhile. There's a first time homebuyer program offering like 5.5% or so where I live but I think thats with 1 point. (CT btw). Hope this helps!

 

[royaldank]

Our company rates right now are 5.50 on a Conventional 30. 5% on a Con 15. 4.5% on a 1/1 ARM.

EDIT: Rates are pretty good right now. They were up, but have dropped a bit and settled over the last week or two. The ARM is still growing a bit, but the Conventional and FHA are sitting real nice right now.

ANOTHER EDIT: The above rates were off our daily rate sheet. I work at a rather large Mortgage Lender in the South. Other areas might be different.

 

[DurocShark]

The lowest I've seen for 8a credit the past coupla weeks is 5.25%.

Real people (4a-7a) are getting in the mid 6's.

 

[richardycc]

just refied my condo from 5.75% ARM 5/1 for 30yrs to 4.5% FIXED for 12yrs. Only paying about a little bit under 200$ more a month.

 

[DurocShark]

Originally posted by: richardycc
just refied my condo from 5.75% ARM 5/1 for 30yrs to 4.5% FIXED for 12yrs. Only paying about a little bit under 200$ more a month.

You got a killer deal! Who through?

 

[richardycc]

Originally posted by: DurocShark

Originally posted by: richardycc
just refied my condo from 5.75% ARM 5/1 for 30yrs to 4.5% FIXED for 12yrs. Only paying about a little bit under 200$ more a month.

You got a killer deal! Who through?

just a very small local bank, they had the orginal loan too, so it wasn't exactly a refi, just modification.

rich

 

[royaldank]

I got a pretty good deal this summer. Got a 1/1 ARM at 3.5%. First rate increase is Jan '05.

 

[alkemyst]

An ARM is not a smart choice at all right now, esp a 1 year....

The chances of the market going up by then is almost guaranteed....and if it were to decline your savings difference would be almost nill.

 

[royaldank]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
An ARM is not a smart choice at all right now, esp a 1 year....

The chances of the market going up by then is almost guaranteed....and if it were to decline your savings difference would be almost nill.

I agree, but this is my first house. I don't plan to live there more than a few years. So, I'm at 3.5 till Jan '05, then at worst 4.5 til Jan '06, and worst case 5.5 til Jan '07. By that point, I will have a job in another city, or my wife and I will have enough money to buy something nicer. I just wanted to get a 3 bedroom house that would be easy to sell in a few years. Also, I'm free to refinance after 90 days, which would be next month.

The ARM is good in certain situations, especially if you don't plan to live in the house all that long.

 

[Vic]

Rates reached record lows in mid-June of this year (with the 30 year fixed just touching into high 4's territory) and then suddenly jumped in less than a month's time into almost the mid 6's. Then rates suddenly started to creep back down after Labor Day, back into the mid-high 5's.
About bankrate.com, I thought I would say that the daily rate they show is not very realistic. For example, even with upper 700 credit scores, the only way you could get 5.43% on a 30 fixed today would be to pay point(s) and fees. "No fee" loans are going to be running right at 6% or maybe 5.875% today. Still an excellent rate under any circumstances.

If any of you out there haven't refi'ed yet and still want to, NOW is the time to do it. Conventional wisdom is still that rates have been far too low far too long and that they have no where to go but up. And to anyone who thinks that 8% is a "high" rate, I'm only going to assume that you bought your first house within the last 3 years.

 

[Zebo]

Does anyone ever pay cash for a house vic?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Does anyone ever pay cash for a house vic?

I know that people occassionally do, but I don't see it. I'm not a realtor, I do mortgages. I don't have any figures, but I would say that the overwhelming majority finance their homes, usually at high loan-to-value (meaning with little down). In most cases where people do put a large amount down, it's usually because they are transferring equity from one house to another.

 

[alkemyst]

I worked in banks for 12 years old until 1999 (I am 32, my dad is a Loan Executive).

At my last bank, huge bonuses were paid (It was OCWEN for those that want to research, who is trying to manage Veterin Administration now as well as had the highest paid female in Florida working for them, $3.5 Million outside of bonuses not part of salary).

We had a 9 tier 'level' scheme....things like manager, senior manager, director, etc

at level 6 (I think), base pay was like $80k but the bonus was 100-125% of salary....the levels ramped up fast. Many people took the bonus and bought cars or houses...some did a few years at high level and retired young.

Nowadays paying cash for the house isn't too smart....it's next to nothing to borrow money and if you have alot of cash to invest there are a lot of high (well sort of high, better than mortgage rates) yields out there.

I am sure in the 80's people with means paid cash rather than set themselves up for an interest rape.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I worked in banks for 12 years old until 1999 (I am 32, my dad is a Loan Executive).

At my last bank, huge bonuses were paid (It was OCWEN for those that want to research, who is trying to manage Veterin Administration now as well as had the highest paid female in Florida working for them, $3.5 Million outside of bonuses not part of salary).

We had a 9 tier 'level' scheme....things like manager, senior manager, director, etc

at level 6 (I think), base pay was like $80k but the bonus was 100-125% of salary....the levels ramped up fast. Many people took the bonus and bought cars or houses...some did a few years at high level and retired young.

Nowadays paying cash for the house isn't too smart....it's next to nothing to borrow money and if you have alot of cash to invest there are a lot of high (well sort of high, better than mortgage rates) yields out there.

I am sure in the 80's people with means paid cash rather than set themselves up for an interest rape.

I've never seen it just wondering. Seems many properties appreciate at a better return than the s&p (my parents house for example bought for 26K sold for 700 something). Seems to me you'd never borrow money to buy stocks (unless on margin) weird it's so prevelent with homes. i'm sure in some cases it's better not to finance paying that intrest no matter how low. Like if you want a low yield bond type of investment, relativly secure. Of course the tax savings is better with the 2/5 rule on the gains of a house than bonds.

 

[alkemyst]

The mortgage was created to allow people to purchase the home today that they need tomorrow. Before mortgages one had to work there whole life and buy a house....then that home was more or less handed down.

Right now real estate is the best investment for most right now (average is a 10% yield yearly...sometimes you get lucky and buy at the right place at the right time and do much better)...hence the crazy asking prices (old shacks of about 1000 sq ft or less without a/c selling for $150k-200k here which is also the same price for new homes in the 1100-1300 sq ft range)...it's crazy....one of the tricks I noticed is there are about three investment companies creating higher and higher priced comps with the same properties by flipping them between each other.

Houses also give a nice tax break and similar shelters.

Once the market adjusts, people will be going for more aggressive and higher yield investments, but the real estate market will almost always guarantee you a profit on the long term investment....it's very rare for any property to be worth less in 20-30 years than purchase price (it does happen though, so a bunch of smaller properties is better than one large one sometimes).

That is also the reason a bank will finance real estate but not stocks, bonds or the like....with a home they have a tangable asset they can recover and resell....with other investments recovering and getting more value out than the paper they are printed on may be impossible .