Hardly a Haven at ALL!

We receive regular updates from Jessica Reagan with GMH  Mortgage, and thought i would share this one.  It's A funny world with low interest rates for buyers wanting to buy and low inventory because sellers want a higher price and are waiting to see if that happens.  It's a 'merry-go-round' we all are familiar with. 

Hardly a Haven at All

We would be derelict in our duties not report that mortgage lending rates hit another new low this past week. The truth is, that's occurred so often over the past two months, it's difficult to keep track on how many consecutive weeks a new low has been reached.

The reason for this week's new low mirrors the reason for last week's new low: investors rushing into haven investments over European debt and economic growth concerns. (This itself is becoming redundant.) U.S. Treasury securities are the top investor havens. That said, our concern is that investors are overestimating the safety of U.S. Treasury securities, and this could impact mortgage lending rates.

The risk isn't that investors will miss a principal payment or an interest payment on Treasury securities; the risk lies in loss of purchasing power and capital losses if these securities need to be sold before maturity.

Most U.S. Treasury securities don’t compensate for inflation, and this can't go on indefinitely. When investors start demanding compensation for lost purchasing power, rates will have to rise. That means yields will rise, prices will fall, and investors will suffer capital losses.

That also means mortgage lending rates will have to rise. What's more, they could rise more than expected, because not only will individual investors suffer capital losses, so will the Federal Reserve, which has been the largest buyer of Treasury securities this year.

The point we want to emphasis is not to take anything for granted, and that includes today's low mortgage lending rates.