Money Tip Monday – Are Interest Rates Really Historically Low?

Truth About Rates
by Lizy Hoeffer

If you listen to the news when they talk about real estate you probably have heard phrases like “historically low”, “rates are expected to rise”, and words like “inflation” and “bottom”. It is hard to know when it’s the right time to purchase or refinance since the news is often conflicting depending on who you listen to you.

When most banks advertise historically low pricing, they are using data up to 40 years old, and typically only talking about 30 year mortgages. While it is true that rates are low, if you are reviewing just the past 5 years you would see that rates have actually risen since hitting the bottom in early 2016. At their lowest level to date, a 30 year mortgage was at 3.25%. Today, 30 year pricing rests somewhere between 4-4.5% depending on market fluctuations. It can be confusing, and I break this down in today’s Money Tip!

It is important to me that you understand that most of what you read and see is marketing language or sensationalized “news”. There are many credible resources like Mortgage News Daily and the Freddie Mac interest survey that will give you real interest rate information to help you make an informed decision.

My team is always happy to help answer any and all of your questions as well as work up additional mortgage scenarios, so please do not hesitate to reach out to us!

Click here to contact Lizy.

About Lizy

Lizy Hoeffer, a senior loan officer with Guild Mortgage — one of the largest independent mortgage lenders in the United States — is the No. 1 female-led mortgage team in Arizona for the second year in a row, according to data recently released by the Scotsman Guide’s Top Originators 2017. The Scotsman Guide is a leading resource for mortgage originators and a publisher of prestigious lists of America’s top-producing mortgage brokers, originators and bankers.

Other Key 2017 rankings for the award-winning Lizy Hoeffer Team, which services the Phoenix area, include the following, which are out of nearly 3,000 entrants from across the United States:

• Most loans closed – No. 16
• Top purchase volume – No. 33
• Top dollar volume – No. 55