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Fed Cuts Rate to Record Low
Posted on December 17th, 2008 No commentsBy cutting the federal funds rate, one Milwaukee analyst speculates that the Fed may be trying to get 30-year fixed mortgages down to 4.5 percent. The Fed’s actions are “virtually unprecedented,” said James McKenna, chief executive of North Shore Bank in Brookfield and a member of the American Bankers Association Board. “They are trying everything and anything from a monetary as well as a fiscal standpoint.” Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article.
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Lower Mortgage Rates for Consumers
Posted on December 17th, 2008 No commentsAverage 30-year fixed mortgage rates fell to a national average of 5.18 with 1.13 points from 5.44 percent with points of 1.24 points a week earlier on 80 percent loan-to-value mortgages. But below-5 percent rates increasingly seem to be expected, especially since U.S. government policy-makers have said that’s what they’d like to see, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
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Homebuilders Seek Economic Incentives
Posted on December 17th, 2008 No commentsThe nation needs a better homebuyer tax credit, a program with below-market rates for 30-year fixed mortgages and more measures to prevent foreclosure to help end the housing crisis, Wiscconsin home-building leaders said in a national conference call about the industry’s proposed stimulus plan. The builders are pushing for 30-year fixed mortgages for less than the current market rate. Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article.
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Mpls. Fed Predicts More Unemployment
Posted on December 17th, 2008 No commentsThe economic downturn will continue in 2009 in the Upper Plains, with unemployment rates rising and recovery in the residential real estate market expected to take more than a year, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis say. In recent surveys, business leaders in Minnesota and Wisconsin were more pessimistic than in other states, Forbes.com reported.