With summer now over, a lot of people are wondering if it’s still a good time to refinance. According to Freddie Mac’s recently released Primary Mortgage Market Survey, it is. The survey notes that mortgage rates have dropped again, and this is keeping alive the wave of refinance activity that hit the United States this year.
If you haven’t already, you might want to refinance right now. A lot of Americans are doing it. According to the survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped 2 basis points last week, reaching 3.44 percent. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.90 percent.
It was the eleventh-straight week with the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage holding below 3.50 percent. These historically low rates, which continue to range between 3.41 and 3.48 percent, that encourage more and more Americans to refinance. Freddie Mac also said in the release that the refinance share of mortgage activity has remained above 60 percent since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.
Meanwhile, the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.76 last week, down from 2.77 percent the week before. A year ago at this time, it averaged 3.10 percent.
The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage also fell by two basis points last week, to 2.81 percent. It averaged 2.91 percent last year.
Don’t ignore today’s mortgage rates
Today’s mortgage rates are the lowest in three years. As they keep defying Wall Street expectations, you could say that the United States is currently going through a mini refinance boom. According to Black Knight Financial Services‘ monthly Mortgage Monitor, there are currently 8.7 million potential refinance candidates nationwide. If you’re one of them, you might want to stop wondering and just do it. Good things usually have very short lifespans. You should take advantage of these historically low rates while you still can.
