The crystal ball: What will mortgage rates do?

 

Q Do you have a prediction about how mortgage rates will move in the next several months?

 

A The Federal Reserve (the board that plays one part in setting interest rates) seems to be finished with its interest rate cuts and mortgage rates have been moving slowly up.

       If you want to know how rates will change, I’ll polish up my crystal ball and make a prediction: They are going up. Now mind you, this is my crystal ball and I’m not saying the view is always perfect.

       Still, at this writing, rates are about 6 percent and this could very well be the lowest interest rate we will see for a while.

       There are more factors pushing interest rates up than

anything out there pushing them down.

       What that means for home buyers is that, if you have the ability to buy now, you will be getting a mortgage at a rate that will look like a huge bargain pretty soon.

       Keep this in mind when you go house hunting.  Likely, the longer you wait, the more you will pay on your mortgage month-to-month and the more you will pay over the life of the loan.

       I’m polishing up my crystal ball to take a second look and… yes… I still see rates creeping up.

Olympic Event

Across
1. Genetic material
4. Overhead
9. Above: Poet.
10. Flock of partridge
11. Mythical bird
12. Extremely angry
13. Prepares dough
15. Section of a
                 hospital
16. Treat or cocoa
18. That thing
20. On __ of
23. Anklebone
25. Pasture
26. Put out
27. Swear
28. Manners
29. Abby's twin

Farm land values rising, broker says

     "Farm value in current dollars averaged $2,160 per acre nationwide on January 1, 2007, up from $974 in 1998, a 13.5 percent average annual gain according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cropland during that period rose from $1,340 to $2,700; pasture rose from $489 to $1,160.

     “The current bubble in prices for corn, wheat and soybeans jacked up average cropland prices during 2007. I doubt that corn-based ethanol will sustain the high prices for crops and cropland. Increasing global food consumption should prove to be a reliable driver of American farmland prices." Curtis Seltzer, landthink.com.

Down
1. Jerk
2. Bright light
3. Curved
4. Crucial assessments
5. Beet soup
6. Egg cell
7. Blackball
8. Watchful one
14. Reddish-brown
17. SW Asian confection
18. Part of a list
19. Cab
21. Ponce de __
22. Young deer
24. Grant's foe

The headline is a clue

to the answer in the diagonal.

Susan Maxwell  (772) 486-4642             Gabe Sanders (772) 323-6996

Ask the Expert

By Gabe Sanders