Money
It’s no secret mortgages are cheap right now. For some borrowers they’re hitting levels many experts might have thought impossible just a few months ago. Welcome to the world of the sub-3% mortgage.
The 30-year fixed-rate average sank last week to 3.15% with an average 0.8 percentage points paid, according to Freddie Mac. That’s the lowest level recorded since the mortgage giant began tracking mortgage rates in 1971. But 3.15% is just the average rate—some buyers and refinancers are qualifying for rates below 3%, something even mortgage pros are seeing for the first time.
“When you look at what happened following the 2008 financial crisis, we saw rates on 30-year-fixed loans fall into the low 3’s, but they never went below 3%,” says Cameron Beane, head of pricing and secondary markets at TD Bank. Now, says Beane, “We’re finally there.”
Borrowers can thank the Federal Reserve for today’s unprecedented mortgage rates, says Keith Gumbinger, vice president at mortgage site HSH.com. With the economy in a tailspin during COVID-19, “the Fed rightfully worried about the effects of the economic shutdown, so it took unprecedented steps to lower mortgage rates to emergency levels,” Gumbinger says.
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