Academic

DOUBLE-DIP? Mortgage rates hit all-time low, but lending activity remains quiet. ?The average rate?

By Glenn Reynolds

DOUBLE-DIP? Mortgage rates hit all-time low, but lending activity remains quiet. “The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.69 percent this week from 4.75 percent last week, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. That marks the lowest level since the company started tracking the data in 1971 and breaks the most recent low set in December. Rates have hovered below 5 percent since early May. Yet home sales are tumbling and mortgage applications are slipping. Potential buyers have retrenched, discouraged by employment fears, the recent expiration of a home buyer’s tax credit and tough lending standards, industry experts said. . . . Although the economy added more jobs in May than in any other month in the past decade, the job growth was driven by temporary hiring for the once-a-decade census.”

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on June 25, 2010 (boomark / email).