The key word is UP. Today, mortgage rates are the highest they have been in the past four months. But still, lower than they were a year ago.
So much for “they always keep interest rates low right before an election” — something I have never said or believed.
But I did say that I expected rates to continue to inch downward, and here they are inching upward instead. So as I’ve always said, no one can predict mortgage interest rates with 100 percent accuracy. Things happen that make no sense.
Like now, the data would indicate that rates should have gone down, not up. But the bond market and interest rates don’t always conform to the data.
What are mortgage interest rates today? Depending on if you live in a coastal state or middle America — and inside those regions, there are certain states, like Florida, that are different than their neighboring states — interest rates today are in the range of 6.5% to 7%, with many at 6.75% to 6.875%.
I wish I had a crystal ball, but the truth is that it is impossible to forecast how the election next week is going to impact mortgage interest rates. The only thing we know for sure is that the election has the potential to affect rates by a significant amount. If it does happen that rates swing wildly on the day of or day after the election, history tells us that in the following days, a “correction” will occur in which they settle back to what they were before.
