What Causes Home Loan Rates to Change?

By Franklin Rhodes • June 15th, 2010

Conventional, VA and FHA mortgage rates are fluctuating unless you lock into a fixed interest rate mortgage.  When shopping for a home refinancing solution, it is important that you lock the rate at an optimal time. Most consumers believe that whenever the Federal Reserve changes their interest rates, their home loan rates also change. This is not necessarily true. In fact, there are certain reasons behind the fluctuation of mortgage interest rates across various times of the year.  The Federal Reserve decides to increase or lower interest rates based on many criteria but the most important thing the Fed pays attention to is the growth of the economy in America. If the Federal Reserve believes that the economy is being affected by inflation they will raise the rate to reduce money supply.

If you qualify for a mortgage, we recommend a no cost home loan because you get a great low mortgage rate and you benefit significantly by letting the mortgage lender pay the lender fees and closing costs.

Although Federal Reserve rates will eventually affect mortgage interest rates, the effect may not be directly or immediately. When a bank or home loan lender extends you a mortgage loan, they will resell that loan to a government agency to get free money to loan to other people. The governmental agencies are called secondary lenders and sell bonds to fund the loans that the direct lenders sell to them. Bonds are mortgage-backed securities and also in constant competition with securities in the stock market. For bonds to win over stocks, they have to offer higher return rates, which means the mortgage governmental agencies buy from lenders has to have high interest rtes. This is the reason that causes fluctuation in the mortgage market nowadays.

Mortgage lenders have lending guidelines that consider criteria such as credit score, loan-to-value and debt to income ratios to underwrite each applicant’s eligibility. The more risk a customer shows, the higher mortgage rate a lender will charge for mortgage interest rates as well as closing costs.  Make an effort to shop multiple lenders and brokers so that you can compare loan options from various companies.

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