Amy Crews Cutts Quotes
With financial markets more optimistic that the economy is expanding nicely, mortgage rates had nowhere to go but up this week. Then, as a result of the GDP figures released today (Thursday), the market began weighing which part of GDP it feels is most dominant, growth or inflation.
- Amy Crews Cutts
The interest-rate savings are not a primary driver of the decision to refinance a fixed-rate mortgage in the current environment. Now, the dominant refinance borrower is looking at the best way to consolidate debt or finance a big project such as a home improvement. And we also have borrowers who took out adjustable-rate mortgages in recent years that are scheduled to have their payment reset this year that may be looking at the option to refinance into a fixed-rate product or into another adjustable-rate mortgage.
- Amy Crews Cutts
The bond markets got a little ahead of themselves, causing yields to rise too quickly over the past few weeks. This week saw a bit of a correction and mortgage rates fell for the first time in eight weeks. Continued volatility in financial markets, however, will keep rates teetering up and down for some time to come.
- Amy Crews Cutts
Refinancing activity was very strong in the fourth quarter, even with higher interest rates. The large share of borrowers who took cash out when refinancing their mortgages combined with the strong overall refinance volume led to an extraction of home equity through prime first-lien refinances of $70.3 billion, slightly higher than the revised estimate of $67.2 billion extracted in the third quarter. We expect the share of all refinance borrowers who take out cash to remain high in 2006 because of the relatively high cost of second mortgages and home-equity lines of credit.
- Amy Crews Cutts
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