Joe Wilson's Silicon Valley Real Estate Blog

As I said in the previous post, mortgage rates are very volatile right now. A couple of weeks ago 30 year fixed rate conforming and jumbo conforming loans could be easily found under 6%. In fact just a month or so back these same rates dipped as low as 5.625%! If you look at rates today, you'll see they've jumped up to nearly 6.5%. Expect this volatility to continue for a while until the credit markets stabilize and investors become comfortable with what risks they're assuming by investing in these long-term bonds. In the meantime, how about a little perspective? Take a look at the chart below showing long-term mortgage rates dating back 45 years:

We've gotten somewhat spoiled by rates at this level. Since about 2002 rates have bounced around a mean of about 6%, a level not previously seen since the mid '60s. So, when you're bemoaning the fact that interest rates just ticked up a quarter of a percent, pull out this graph and remind yourself that anything under 7% is historically a great rate.