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Mortgage Rates At 37 Year Low

Posted Thursday, December 18, 2008

This week marks a new low for mortgage rates. Mortgage rates are at a 37 year low. Rates have not been this low since 1971. The federal government decreased interest rates for the seventh consecutive week. This is an all out attempt to bring home buyers into the market and take some inventory off the shelf.

The thought is lower interest rates will bring home buyers out from the bushes and the side lines. It will also help the many home owners who have home equity lines of credit on their homes. HELC interest rates usually move up or down with the prime interest rates.

This week housing permit data also came out, with good news and bad. The results state November as the lowest housing permit month in history since 1975. The good news from this data is less homes being built mean some of the existing homes sitting vacant on the market will be purchased. The bad news is if home building permits are going down, it suggests local economies are struggling and decreasing as well.

It takes many trades and people to build homes. Plumbers, electricians, framers, engineers, designers, project managers, and the list goes on. With less homes being built these people have no where to work and that is not good or the economy.

So with all the bad news about the real estate market many questions come to mind. When will the real estate market find a bottom? When will we stop seeing more foreclosures across the nation? When will many of americans largest investments start seeing positive returns rather than declines in the double digits?

There is no one or two pieces of data that can lead you to the answer of when the real estate market is going to turn around. There are however a few economic factors that you can track locally to determine where your local market sits. Here are a few economic factors I suggest you track on a monthly basis. Rate of new house building permits, rate of existing homes sales, rate of foreclosures, and interest rates.

If you track these items on a monthly basis you should have a pretty good idea of when the real estate market will hit bottom, or when it does. When building permits increase, and existing homes sales increase it is a sign that better times are ahead.

For now if you are in a home that seems impossible to sell I suggest contacting a local home buyer or we buy houses representative in your area. They exist in every major city in the nation. They are not real estate agents but investors who are professional home buyers. You can talk with them at no cost and they can give you great advice about your best home selling options.