Comments on: Bernanke Named Person of the Year, Keeps Rates Low- So?

By: Matthew Rathbun

Matthew Rathbun — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:53:08 +0000

ROFL I really don’t know what to say…

By: PopREblogs.com

PopREblogs.com — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:55:35 +0000

Bernanke Named Person of the Year, Keeps Rates Low- So?: Time Mag’s Person of the Year The Federal Reserve Chairm... http://bit.ly/6H8PAn

By: Real Estate Feeds

Real Estate Feeds — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:55:35 +0000

Bernanke Named Person of the Year, Keeps Rates Low- So?: Time Mag’s Person of the Year The Federal Reserve Chairm... http://bit.ly/6H8PAn

By: Ted Jernigan

Ted Jernigan — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:53:13 +0000

The other lurking loan qualification issue will be recent retirees with great assets and only social security for income. This will likely create a very high debt to income ratio and anything above 50% prevents loan approval.These people have no history of withdrawals from their retirement assets. Lenders want a 2 year history of withdrawals. Income from new employment will not count until there is a two year history. Good advice for retirees is to purchase their retirement home and qualify for their loan before retiring.

By: Arn Cenedella

Arn Cenedella — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:23:21 +0000

Lani:
I agree with Ben.
It is a good time to refi and lock in 30 year rate, if you can.
With short term rates at 0%, odds are rates will rise in the long-term.
Of course, the difficulty in refinancing today often is due to the value of property decreasing and therefore increasing the loan to value ratio to 100% and above.
In today’s mortgage environment, most lenders will probably want 80% loan to value (LTV).
Bottom line, you need to have equity to get a good 30 year refi fixed loan.
If there is a home equity loan on property, that can add complications.
If you can refi into 30 year fixed, probably a good idea to do so.
At some point when the economy turns, we will probably have inflation and that would push long-term rates upward.
Of course no one really knows what will happen – probably the major lesson from last year’s stock and financial market meltdown is that lots of smart expert informed people and many large public and private institutions had no idea the danger the economy was in and did not have adequate contingency plans set up to deal with what did happen.