November 15th, 2018

As rates keep inching above the 5% mark, it’s a good idea to constantly keep things in perspective. We are still in one of the lowest-rate periods in history, with the historical averaging being close to 8%. Furthermore, if we look at the average rates for the time spans below, we see that home buying is not as affected by rates as we trick ourselves into believing:

From 1980-1990, the average rate was 12.5%; in 2000, rates averaged 8.05%; and from 2001-2009, they averaged 6%.

According to First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming, “The key takeaway is that people were still buying homes across all of these mortgage rate eras. Mortgage rates have adjusted in the past in response to high inflation, a technological revolution, a housing crisis, and a financial collapse.”

Remind your borrowers that now is a historically great time to buy, rates are still low, and there are many more benefits to a mortgage than just interest rate.