Low Mortgage Rates Spur Activity

Fed activity to lower mortgage rates has prompted a flood of mortgage applications for people hoping to lock in seriously low fixed rate mortgages. Those with good credit have rarely seen rates this low in their lifetime. It is a chance to large amounts of interest payments.

clipped from spokanejournal.com Plunging loan rates ignite activity Mortgage requests, refinancings soar after Fed's action By Richard Ripley Plunging home mortagage rates have ve sparked a flood of refinancings, a rise in mortgage applications from people who are seeking to buy homes, and hopes that the whirlwind of activity might provide a boost for the Spokane-area economy. Applications for mortgages jump-ed 25 percent in the week ended Dec. 10 at Golf Savings Bank, a Sterling Financial Corp. mortgage subsidiary, says Troy Sims, Golf's home-loan branch manager here. Applications for refinancings "are so high we can't even track them," he says. On the morning of Dec. 11, Golf was offering 30-year mortgages with a fixed rate of 4.875 percent. "We've only seen these rates one other time" in his almost 17 years in the mortgage business, Sims says. That occurred in August 2004, although he says comparable rates were available for extremely brief periods, such as for "an hour or an hour and a half," earlier this year.