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Mortgage Rates

MORTGAGE RATES HIT TWO-MONTH LOW

Mortgage rates dropped this week in a classic illustration of a phenomenon known as the flight to quality. The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 9 basis points, to 6.2%, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.32 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 6.27%; four weeks ago, it was 6.42%. The freakish week began with a prediction from Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, that a recession could hit the U.S. economy this year. Then there was a rout in Chinese stock markets, where a prominent index dropped by 9%. After that, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 3.3%. (Source: Bankrate.com)

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Daily Real Estate News  |  February 28, 2007Home Prices Fall at Fastest Rate in 14 Years
U.S. home prices fell 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Standard & Poor’s inaugural release of the national Case-Shiller price index.

This is the fastest rate home prices have fallen since 1992. Overall home prices rose only 0.4 percent last year.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, national home prices are down 1.6 percent in the past year. Prices in the top 10 metro areas are down 2 percent.

Among the 20 cities included in the index, the biggest gains in the past year were in Seattle (up 12.1 percent), Portland (up 9.9 percent) and Charlotte (up 6.7 percent). The biggest losses in the past year were recorded in Detroit (down 5.9 percent), Boston (down 5.1 percent) and San Diego (down 4.2 percent).

Source: Dow Jones Business News (02/27/07)