Mortgage Interest Rates are Hovering just above historic lows

Minneapolis, MN: Current home mortgage interest rates are hovering just above all time low historic mortgage rates, making it extremely smart to purchase a home today, and lock in some killer interest rates.

Interest rates are for the month of August 2019 have been hanging between 3.50% and 3.75% for a standard 30-yr fixed for the best clients. This is a far cry from when I bought my first house in 1981 and paid 16% for my FHA 30-year fixed rate loan. Yikes.

Rates all through the 1980’sand 1990’s seem crazy compared to recent years. I remember rates jumping up in the mid 1990’s, and plenty of loans were given to millions of people in the 7%, 8%, and even 9% range. As a Loan Officer, I have fond memories of people stacked up outside my office door like cord wood in the fall of 1998 to refinance to the out of those 7% and 8% loans down to the mid 6% range.  The lucky few going in during the short time the low rates lasted before and rates were moving back up again.

Right before 9/11, interest rates were in the 7% range, and fell to mid 6% range as the government tried stimulating the economy, slowly creeping rates down to the middle 5% range by spring of 2003.

Click here to see current nationwide mortgage rate averages.

With rates in the middle 5’s, refinancing was all the rage again before rates went back to the middle 6% range for most of 2007 and 2008. With the housing market collapse, by early 2009, rates were down to the upper 4% range, finally settling in the low 4% range through 2010 before dropping again to upper 3% range for most of 2011 and 2012. By the middle of 2013, rates had moved back into the middle 4% range, and staying that way pretty much until early 2015, where the upper 3% range was king, and stayed that way through all of 2016, until the fall of 2016, where the lowest interest rates recorded since Freddie Mac started keeping records in 1971 occurred in the fall at just under 3.50%.

As you can see from a historic pattern, mortgage interest rates today are just above all time historic lows. I get many people telling me they are going to hold out, because rates may be lower. I don’t have a crystal ball, but looking back to 1971, and only touching current mortgage interest rates once before, the odd’s are you should act now.