Get a Mortgage Now – Part II (6%?)
Reasons why you should get a mortgage NOW – part II
Mortgage interest rate of 6%?
In this part of the series, I would like to simply quote from an article written by Kirk Haverkamp that was written on February 4, 2010. I mentioned this article in part I of this series. The title of this article is “Window of Opportunity Closing for Home Buyers?”. You can find this article here on this website.
The reason that I am quoting from this article is not because I am lazy (although I can’t totally deny it either 
), but it is because I can’t add anything more to it. This section that you will see below expands on the Fed actions in April 2010 and the implications for mortgages (you can read what these actions are here).
It is in this quote that you will read why some suspect the mortgage interest rate can hit as high as 6% by the middle of 2010.
Here is the quote:
The $8,000 first-time homebuyer and $6,500 repeat homebuyer tax credits can only be taken on homes for which sales contracts are signed by April 30, though buyers have until June 30 to actually close the sale. Congress already extended and expanded the credit after it was originally due to expire last November; there doesn’t seem to be much support for extending it again, so if you miss the April 30 deadline, you’re probably out a luck on this one.
A potentially bigger impact will occur on when the Fed buys the last of $1.25 trillion in mortgage securities it has been purchasing over the past year. Also scheduled to conclude on April 30, the program has been credited for driving mortgage interest rates to record lows in the spring and again in the fall of 2009, and keeping them at or below 5 percent for most of the year.
Though 30-year fixed rates held steady around 5 percent through Jan. 2010, most observers expect them to rise sharply once the Fed purchase program concludes. Many observers expect rates to almost immediately shoot up to 6 percent and hold there, an increase of a full percent. On a $250,000 30-year loan, that 1 percent translates to an additional $150 a month, or $1,800 a year.
Finally, in early April the FHA is increasing the mortgage insurance premium it charges on all loans by half a percent, from 1.75 percent to 2.25 percent. A onetime fee charged upfront at the time of closing, it means that the premium on a $150,000 FHA loan would increase by $750, to $3,375. However, this only applies only to borrowers seeking an FHA-backed loan, although those are making up a larger share of the market.
End of quote.
