Mortgage Rate Checkup

For all you potential home buyers or refis out there, below is an updated chart of Bankrate.com's national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate.  At a rate of 3.64%, home loans are as cheap as ever.

We've heard that "home loans are as cheap as ever" for a few years now, which causes a problem for the housing market.  When rates were a full point higher, most people that bought a home or did a refi thought they were bottom ticking the rate market.  But rates have just continued to go lower and lower, which certainly doesn't give potential buyers any sense of urgency.  At this point, potential buyers out there aren't in any way worried that rates will start going up, especially with the Fed telling us that rates will be low through 2014.  It won't be until rates start rising again that buyers will start rushing to lock them in.  Low rates are not likely to be truly stimulative until there is a worry that they won't be low for long.