Mortgage Rate Apocalypse

Now that I’ve got your attention, here is the real truth about the current state of mortgage rates. From the industry that has been “crying wolf” for the last I-don’t-know-how-many years about “low low rates,” I know that this is just more noise. I have been trying to figure out exactly how to describe what is happening lately in the fixed rate mortgage marketplace. Because rates usually move in step with the general state of the economy (economy good= rates go up, economy bad= rates go down), we’ve been in a VERY low mortgage rate market for most of 2010, as well as late 2009. I know that certain radio advertisers have been pimping the so-called “rate of a lifetime” every 15 minutes for going on 3 years now, to the extent that the urgency has been drained completely. Well, I’m here to tell you that today the FNMA 4% bond coupon that we use to track pricing has just hit the highest level in history.

I think that short-term, we are ripe for a slight correction, but longer term, we are looking to stay firmly below 5% for the foreseeable future.