40 Quotes by Frank Nothaft

As the economy continues to show signs that the recession is ending, the housing market continues to expand thanks, in large part, to current low mortgage rates. And as long as inflation is not an issue in the economy, lending rates should remain around 7 percent.

Current record breaking low mortgage rates are keeping demand for housing strong, even as the overall economy stumbles sluggishly into the first part of the new year.

Currently the market is focusing on an anticipated economic recovery within the next six months. That focus put some upward pressure on mortgage rates this week, causing them to rise. There remains good volatility though, due to market speculation over exactly when and how strong the rebound will be.

The strength in employment growth and an unexpected jump in consumer credit in January helped push mortgage rates a little higher this week. While long-term interest rates are at the highest level since May of 1998, they are still very affordable, particularly when compared to the 1970s and 1980s.

Anticipation that the Federal Reserve may well cut rates at its next meeting, combined with further weakness in certain sectors of the economy, caused interest rates to fall again.

As a matter of fact, it looks as though 1998 will register the lowest annual mortgage rates in 30 years.

As a matter of fact, housing directly contributed to real GDP growth of 19 percent in the first quarter of the year and 23 percent in the second quarter. To put this in perspective, this would compare to 17 percent of real GDP growth over all of 2004.

There was little activity during this holiday week to move mortgage rates one way or another,

There was no news this week that would drive mortgage rates in one direction or the other. Therefore, mortgage rates didn't have much reason to move a lot, staying below 7 percent for the second week running.