Nobody is more understanding of the economic downturn than I am, especially with the company I work for reporting 4th Quarter profits down 98% from last year (Bank of America). People are losing their jobs and there is so much uncertainty in the air. With that being said, there are some great opportunities out there. Because of what I do for the bank I keep close tabs on a lot of financial indicators and of course interest rates. If you ever had thought about refinancing or taking the plunge and buying, you are not going to find rates lower than they are right now. The 10 year treasury bond, which is the most indicative figure that influences mortgage rates, is at a 5 year low, and represents one of the 3 or 4 lowest figures since 1958. The rule of thumb is that refinancing typically makes sense if you can cut your rate by 1/2, keeping everything else constant. That should provide a good payback period for your closing costs on the refi.
We just refied, and went from a 30 year fixed to a 15 year fixed, and we were able to secure a 4.5% fixed interest rate - down from a 6.25%. It may not sound huge, but we should save about $190,000 in interest over the course of the loan. Good rates are out there - I thought I would bring it up in case anyone was on the fence. Obviously when purchasing you need to take into account local markets and not let the rate dictate that decision.
Assuming you're not a dork like me and have your own amortization calculator, here is a great website to calculate if it makes financial sense - http://ray.met.fsu.edu/~bret/amortize.html.
Again, I am by no means an expert, so if anyone has any other comments, please include them. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions as well. Rates can be found at any financial lending website.
