I received a text message this afternoon from a reader who wrote, "Just saw on ticker that mort rates are
lowest in 30 years". Since I haven’t written anything on MORTality rates on the blog (other than this odd little story), I’m assuming he meant MORTgage rates.
It’s true, mortgage rates are low this week as a result in part of the market decline. But the lowest in 30 years? I’d be surprised if it’s true, below is a recap of the annual average of 30-year fixed rate mortgages, dating back to 1977. We’ll use 5.5% as your current average since that’s what Mark Weddle was quoting last week. You can see the entire month-by-month breakdown here. So, is the claim true? Let’s see:
- Average of 5.84% in 2004
- 5.45% in March of that year
- Average of 5.83% in 2003
- 5.23% in June of that year
5.23% is the lowest I can find in over 30 years, and that’s happened within the last five years. Impressive. So is he right, are these the lowest rates we’ve seen in 30 years?
Pretty darn close.
Just for "fun", the highest rate was 17.60% in February 1982. I can’t imagine.
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