Now Is the Time to Deal
If you're in the market for home-mortgage money and you've been waiting for the right moment in the rate cycle to shop, get moving. It may be here.</br></br>Here's why, along with some quick tips on what to look for-and avoid-in the early-fall mortgage bazaar:</br></br>Fact No. 1: Long-term fixed-rate mortgage quotes are down by as much as three-fourths of a percentage point from their mid-August peak in some markets. Nationally, they've slid from about 11 percent to below 10 1/4 percent, as measured by the federal secondary mortgage market agencies.</br></br>Fact No. 2: Although none of them offers money-back guarantees with their fortune cookies, mortgage-market economists with the best forecasting records believe the odds favor modest increases in rates over coming weeks, rather than a continuation of the current decline. Absent any convincing signs of a recession in 1989-higher unemployment, lower production of goods and services, lower consumer spending-the consensus outlook is for gradually accelerating inflation levels. The greater the expectation of inflation by the marketplace, they said, the greater the likelihood of higher interest rates.</br></br>Fact No. 3: Price competition among lenders in the majority of large urban markets is now more intense than at any time in the past three decades. There are too many lenders, with too many branch offices, too many loan-production executives and too much money to hand out.