In another sign that the housing market may be emerging from its slump, applications for mortgages rose last week by a nice 12.8 percent.The news comes from the Mortgage Bankers Association which stated that its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications rose to 668.5, which is the highest that the index has read since back on May 22.
Government insured mortgages made up 45.7 percent of all applications last week... the highest level since November 1990.
The index includes both purchase and re-finance mortgage applications. Refinance applications made up 63.8 percent of applications filed last week.
Has the housing market finally turned the corner? That remains to be seen, and it will take several more months before we can answer that question, but the executive director at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, Eric Belsky is seeing some good signs out there.
Belsky noted that several months of improving sales is definitely boding well for the housing market. He attributes the recent improvements in the market to low interest rates which have made houses much more affordable.
The question is whether or not the market withstand potential increases in interest rates that may be on the horizon? There is no reason to believe that the Federal Reserve is going to be raising rates this week, but Wall Street is expecting to hear that the recession is over, or near being over, which would lead to the assumption that interest rates will be rising in the months to come.
Belsky believes that a slight uptick in interest rates will actually benefit the housing market, as anxious buyers decide to rush in and finance a new home before interest rates shoot up too much. A significant boost in interest rates however does have Belsky nervous, as he believes too much of an increase could definitely threaten the rebound that we are starting to see.
Last week, the average rate for 30 year fixed mortgages was 4.97 percent, down from 5.08 percent the week before.
Another factor that has helped stabilize the housing market has been the government's $8,000 incentive plan designed to bring buyers into the market. This incentive plan is scheduled to end on November 22, and the big question mark is how the market will continue to perform once this incentive leaves the market.
There are still many unknowns out there, but for now things are definitely looking up for the ailing housing market
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