The average rate for a conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has dropped from 4.23 percent to 4.12 percent over the past three weeks and is back to within 2 basis points of its 2014 low (4.10 percent) and 11 basis points lower than at the same time last year, according to Freddie Mac’s latest mortgage market survey.
The drop follows the release of the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting minutes, in which the Fed indicates increasing concern about a slowdown in global growth, a stronger dollar, and their impacts on the domestic economy, along with continued weakness in the overall housing market despite cheap money in the form of historically low mortgage rates.
While reiterating its intent to maintain a low-rate policy “for a considerable time,” which would appear to be around six to nine months from now, there are indications that rates might be raised faster than expected once the hikes begin.