Just a week ago the Federal Reserve had a late night special meeting and decided to drop their interest rates by a whopping 0.75%. Now just a week later they have dropped the rates an additional 0.50%!

This combined drop of 1.25% places the Fed's rate at just 3%, the lowest it has been since June of 2005. General opinion is that the cuts were made due to continued fears of the housing slump and the trickle down effect this has on the economy as a whole. Even with these large cuts, I heard one commentator say that he believed even further cuts were in the future. We will just have to wait and see.

With last night's passage of Amendment 1 here in Florida which promises property tax relief and now more interest rate cuts, it will be interesting to see if these two events work to stimulate real estate sales, at least here in Florida.

Tomorrow, January 31, I will report on Freddie Mac's current interest rate averages. Keep in mind that these most recent drops by the Fed may not have time to show up in Freddie Mac's report.

For more information or questions about this topic please call me at: 813-783-4444 or e-mail me at: jelwell1@tampabay.rr.com

I also invite you to visit my my website where I think you will find a lot of useful information. To get there just click on the following link: www.jelwell.century21bnr.com