SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 News) - If you own a home, odds are you've been asking yourself is now is a good time to refinance.
Mortgage experts say 30 year fixed rates are at "historical lows", but many Utahns are still hesitating. Should you?
Home owners Jennifer and Paul Welsh have been keeping a wary eye on mortgage rates over the past several weeks.
But when Paul saw the numbers 4.5, he called his wife and said, time to lock in.
"You're not going to have many opportunities like now to be able to get the rates that you can get and still have the same payment and knock twelve to thirteen years off a loan, it's amazing."
The words "amazing" and "housing market" have not been used together in quite some time.
But with the fed's effort to return that market to normal, rates are low. But have we hit bottom?
Matthew Pineda, President of Castle and Cooke Mortgage says, "That's the never ending puzzle for people who own a home. If the rates were at four, they'd want them to be at three, if the rates were at five, they would want them to go to four. The reality of what we have now is thirty year fixed rates at four and a half percent. We've never seen them. This is the lowest it's ever been. We're in historical times now."
Pineda says rates could go as low as four and a quarter, but there is also talk that rates will flatten out in June, meaning a missed opportunity. "You are saving hundreds of dollars a month in housing expenses. That's hundreds of dollars a month towards all the bills you've racked up in the past couple of years. I mean what you could do with two, three, four hundred dollars a month in savings. Those are lifestyle changes."
For the Welsh family of four, it's a chance, during uncertain times, to look forward to the future.
"My son will only be sixteen by the time it's paid off, and that's young! You can still play and have some fun."
To find out more, go to
www.castlecookemortgage.com.
