Friday Flashback: Mortgage Rates from 15 years ago

My husband and I have been cleaning out the garage and I came across an old mortgage rate sheet from August 2001. Mortgage rates were a bit higher 15 years ago. If you paid a 1% discount point, your rate for a 30 year fixed would have been 6.500% on a 30 day lock.

2001 rates

I started my mortgage career in April 2000. Rates at that time were in the low to mid 8’s for a 30 year fixed priced with 1 point. You can imagine my excitement as a fairly new mortgage originator to have rates come down to the mid to high 6’s!

Flash forward to our current very low mortgage rates which are just about half of what they were 15 years ago. Yesterday, Freddie Mac released their weekly survey revealing that the 30 year fixed rate averaged 3.43% priced with 0.5 points.

august 2016 pmms

Freddie Mac reports that rates have been around 3.5% since June 30, 2016, making this a great time to check into refinancing.

Mortgage rates have been low for an incredible amount of time. Today’s Job’s Report came in hotter than expected causing speculation that the Fed will increase the Fed Funds rate by December of this year. This caused mortgage rates to trend a bit higher today.

Bottom line – the only way to capture the current low rates is to start an application and LOCK in the interest rate. If your home is located anywhere in Washington state, I’m happy to help you! Click here for current mortgage rates.

 

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