Mortgage rates are “probably as good as it’s going to get” and the housing market is likely to rebound sooner than some forecasts, Freddie Mac interim chief executive John A. Koskinen says.
“Mortgage rates, if they go down at all further, it’s going to be incremental,” Koskinen told reporters Friday in Washington after he met with President Barack Obama. “Interest rates are probably close to bottoming out, and therefore we are telling people” to buy.
The U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage rate as tracked by Freddie Mac fell to 4.85 percent, the lowest on record, on a government plan to increase purchases of mortgage bonds. The U.S. housing market, the worst since the Great Depression, might improve sooner than some economists’ forecasts as people who had put off home purchases take advantage of a “buyer’s market.” Bloomberg News
