2015 Mortgage Rate Roundup

To put it simply, it’s been quite a year for the mortgage industry. A lot of the focus has been around implementation of TRID, an overhaul of disclosure requirements, which was ultimately implemented in October after being delayed for some time. Lenders during the course of 2015 took a greater interest in using technology to both education potential borrowers about the benefits of homeownership but also to manage the application process itself. Let’s take a look at what 2015 looked like for the mortgage industry in terms of rates.

As 2015 draws to a close, mortgage rates are actually not following any type of predictable nature when you compare Wall Street with what’s actually happening in the market. According to the most recent weekly survey on mortgage rates conducted by Freddie Mac, 30 year mortgage rates decreased by 2 basis points to a 3.95 percent average last week.

Experts, however, thought that rates would be closer to 4.50 % by now- and perhaps the fact that what’s actually happened and predicted trends are not as close as you might think is another typical factor in 2015. Given that industry experts thought TRID would slow the mortgage industry down significantly and that didn’t happen, the story of predictions vs. reality seems like a repeating trend.

Now that mortgage rates have decreased, home buyers can actually afford bigger or better-suited homes to the tune of 7% more. Individuals would have been able to buy a $400,000 home last year are now able to purchase a home valued around $428,000.

Mortgage rates are below the critical 4 percent figure, which has implications psychologically for a whole range of buyers who feel comfortable getting a mortgage or refinancing their home.

For every $100,000 borrowed todays, loans cost an average of $425 per month.

Rates have ebbed and flowed over 2015, but the year started off nearly where we are at now. Rates for a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to their lowest in April for the year and spiked over 4 percent in July. After a slight decrease in October, the average rates are hovering just around 4 percent. The year kicked off with rates at much the same place, so it’s as if the industry is ending where it started.