30-year mortgages at new record low
WASHINGTON – Dec. 4, 2009 – The average interest rate for a 30-year mortgage dropped to a record low of 4.71 percent this week, pushed down by an aggressive government campaign to reduce borrowing costs.

The rate, published Thursday by Freddie Mac, is the lowest since the mortgage finance company began tracking the data in 1971. The previous record of 4.78 percent was set during the week ending April 30 and matched last week.

The Federal Reserve is pumping $1.25 trillion into mortgage-backed securities to try to bring down mortgage rates, but that money is set to run out next spring. The goal of the program is to make homebuying more affordable and prop up the housing market.

Despite the government support, qualifying for a loan is still tough. Lenders have tightened their standards dramatically, so the best rates are available to those with solid credit and a 20 percent downpayment.

Freddie Mac collects mortgage rates on Monday through Wednesday of each week from lenders across the country. Rates often fluctuate significantly, even within a given day, often tracking yields on long-term Treasury bonds.

This week’s drop reflects a rush of investors into the security of government debt after concerns about financial trouble in Dubai drove investors to safe harbors. But rates climbed back later in the week, and analysts say they are likely to remain volatile.

“There are no guarantees that mortgage rates are going to stay at these low levels,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

And millions of American families have not been able to take advantage of them, particularly in the areas where home prices have fallen the most.

About 11 million households, or 23 percent of homeowners with a mortgage, owe more on their home loans than their house is currently worth according to First American CoreLogic, a real estate information company.

That makes refinancing difficult.

While the government has launched a program designed to help these “underwater” borrowers, only about 140,000 homeowners have used it so far.

In Orlando, mortgage broker Chris Brown says the low rates are a boon to first-time homebuyers who can qualify for a loan. But he says he isn’t getting much business from homeowners looking to refinance.

“Most of the people that could refinance probably have” done so, he said. “Rates have been artificially low for quite some time.”

The average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to a record low of 4.27 percent, from 4.29 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac.

Rates on five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 4.19 percent, up from 4.18 percent a week earlier. Rates on one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 4.25 percent from 4.35 percent.

The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. One point is equal to 1 percent of the total loan amount.

The nationwide fee for loans in Freddie Mac’s survey averaged 0.7 points for 30-year loans. The fee averaged 0.6 points for 15-year, five-year and one-year loans.

Buyers and homeowners who want to refinance are picking up their phones. Mortgage applications rose 2 percent last week from a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday, driven by a more than 4 percent increase in purchase applications and a nearly 2 percent increase in applications to refinance existing loans.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press, Alan Zibel, AP real estate writer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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WASHINGTON – Dec. 15, 2009 – Five years ago, if your application for a mortgage included a 20 percent downpayment, your bank would have approved your loan by sundown and sponsored a parade in your honor.

But in this new era of tight credit, having a big downpayment no longer guarantees you’ll qualify for a mortgage. Starting this week, mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae will require borrowers with a 20 percent downpayment to have a credit score of at least 620. Previously, the cutoff was 580.

Fannie Mae buys loans, providing an important source of financing for lenders. For that reason, its guidelines are considered the gold standard for mortgage loans. Most banks are expected to adopt the new standards, if they haven’t already.

“Credit scores have never mattered quite as much as they do now,” says Bob Walters, chief economist for Quicken Loans.

In addition, Fannie Mae won’t approve loans for borrowers with a 20 percent downpayment if more than 45 percent of their gross monthly income goes toward debt. Fannie Mae didn’t disclose the previous debt limit, but it was higher than 45 percent, says Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith.

The higher standards could frustrate buyers hoping to take advantage of low interest rates, depressed home prices and generous tax breaks that were recently extended until next spring. Even buyers who qualify for a mortgage may find that they’re ineligible for the best rates because lenders have tightened their standards across the board, says Gerri Detweiler, credit adviser for Credit.com.

If you’ve already found a home you’d like to buy, there’s not much you can do to raise your score before you apply for a loan. But if you’re just starting to tour open houses, there are steps you can take to improve your credit profile, including:

• Review your credit reports for errors. Go to AnnualCreditReport.com and order your credit reports from the three main credit-reporting bureaus: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. You’re entitled to a free credit report once a year from all three of the bureaus, but only if you go through this website.

Once you receive your credit reports, go through them and look for inaccurate information, such as accounts you never opened. All of the credit bureaus provide a process to dispute errors, says Craig Watts, spokesman for Fair Isaac, which created the widely used FICO score.

• Pay off credit cards and other debts. One of the factors used to calculate your credit score is your “credit utilization ratio,” which measures the amount of credit you have outstanding vs. your total available credit. This ratio accounts for 30 percent of your score. Paying off balances will increase the amount of unused credit you have available, which will help your score.

But even if you’ve decided never to use credit cards again, don’t close your accounts. Closing a credit card account won’t help your credit score and could hurt it, Watts says. When you close an account, you reduce the amount of your available credit, which could hurt your credit utilization ratio.

• Avoid opening any new accounts. “Every new account you open is likely to drop your credit score, at least a little,” Watts says.

Checking your score

When you order your free credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com, your credit scores aren’t included; you’ll have to pay a fee to get them.

In recent months, though, several services, such as Quizzle, Credit Karma and Credit.com have launched programs that provide free credit profiles. These websites can provide a useful snapshot of your credit standing and provide tips on how to improve it, Detweiler says.

If you’re planning to buy a home a year from now, she adds, it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money to buy scores that could change by the time you apply for a loan.

But house hunters who plan to apply for a loan in the next few weeks should know their actual FICO scores, because that’s the score most potential lenders use, Detweiler says.

You can buy your FICO score and credit report from TransUnion and Equifax at www.myfico.com for $15.95 each.

Earlier this year, Experian stopped selling to consumers the FICO scores it provides lenders, Watts says. You can buy a credit score based on Experian’s own scoring model for $15 at www.experian.com. Experian’s website also promotes a “free credit report and score,” but to get this deal, you must enroll in a credit-monitoring service that costs $14.95 a month.

Copyright © 2009 USA TODAY 

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