Today’s Mortgage Rates: California Mortgage Rate Update and a Little Mortgage 101

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Feb. 25, 2010 ( http://www.freerateupdate.com/ ) - Rates for today’s POV* came out and stayed out with no major Wholesale Lenders repricing one way or the other. Conforming loans at  4.75% and Jumbo Conforming at 4.875%.

SUPER Jumbos at 5.75%. As always, jokes, recipies and loan scenarios are welcome at lololoans@yahoo.com .

Which way is UP?  Although there have been recent signs of recovery in the Housing Market, the grim fact is that a huge number of properties have lost a lot of equity. People in the know, experts, and the guy on the next barstool will be more than glad to remind everyone that the Market goes in cycles and it is only a matter of time before values start going up again. Well yes. Kind of like those bumper stickers that say “Keep Tahoe Blue” well YEAH,  duhhhh. Some homeowners may be in the position to nudge the value regaining process along a little by simply overpaying each month. Sounds simple but the math would be as follows (and this is based on a fixed rate mortgage)   Say a $400K Loan Amount at 5.0% on a 30yr loan. Payment is $2147.00/month. Bump it up about five hundred and you are on course for a TWENTY year amortization schedule. Even $100.00/month extra helps. And if you can’t swing it that month,  you simply make the lower 30yr payment. However there is an incentive to actually ReFi the loan itself in that the interest rate for a 20yr loan is lower than a 30yr, and the rate for a 15yr is lower than a 20yr. As of today the spread was  about a half a point between Conforming 30yr fixed and Conforming 15yr fixed.

*POV = Plain, Old Vanilla Home Mortgage: 30yr fixed, good credit, at least 20% equity, Single Family residence, Owner Occupied,  no open sores. Well ok a few…