Blogging to Gold

The real interest rate takes into account the yearly inflation rate (that is, the average percentage increase in the price of all goods and services in the economy). If the average price increase, or inflation, for the year were 3 percent (thus reducing the purchasing power of your money by the same amount), the real interest rate would, in the example, be 15 percent minus 3 percent, as the $115 owed to the credit card company would be worth 3 percent less than when the purchase was made.

Another common term is compound interest. Without compound interest, a $100 loan with a 15 percent interest rate would result in the following amounts due, assuming you made no payments: $115 after the first year, $130 after the second, $145 after the third. In other words, each year the company would charge you 15 percent of the principal. Instead, banks, credit card companies, and other institutions charge compound interest. The first year would be 15 percent of the $100 loan, increasing the amount due to $115; the second year would be 15 percent of $115, boosting the loan amount to $132.25; and for the third year, the amount owed would be $152.09. Each year you would pay interest, or a percentage fee, not only on the principal but also on the interest from the previous year, thus creating “compound” interest. For credit cards, payments are due each month, and the annual interest rate (15 percent in the example) is really a compound interest of 12 monthly interest rates.

Interest rates are also used in such financial services as savings accounts and CDs. CDs, or certificates of deposits, are similar to savings accounts but do not allow any withdrawals for a designated period of time, such as one year. Consumers and businesses open savings accounts and CDs to earn interest on their deposits. If you deposit $100 in a savings account or CD that offers an interest rate of 5 percent, you will have $105 in that account after a year. In this way, consumers and businesses receive interest because they “lend” money to the bank.

Bonds, another form of borrowing money, use interest as well. In order to raise money, governments and corporations sell bonds, which are essentially certificates that promise that the government or corporation will repay the price of the bond, plus interest, after a designated amount of time, such as five years. Government bonds are often called securities. The U.S. government, for example, sells securities to pay for the national debt (when the government spends more than it collects in taxes, there is a debt, which the government must pay). Local governments commonly sell bonds to pay for large-scale projects, such as schools, swimming pools, and jails.

Over the past few months I have had both current clients and potential clients calling and asking why haven’t the interest rates dropped more. “The Fed Funds Rate is really low.” “How long will it take for mortgage rates to go down also?” “I’m going to wait a little longer, I know they will drop because of the Fed Funds Rate.”

Unfortunately, many borrowers and even some loan officers get confused when is comes down to who actually sets the mortgage interest rates. First of all, the Fed Funds Rate has actually nothing to do with where mortgage interest rates are. The Fed Funds Rate is actually the interest rate that banks lend to each other overnight. The lower the rate, the more liquidity there is between the banks. It is a short term rate that signals the Federal Reserves view as the state to the money supply.

Well. if the Federal Reserve doesn’t set rates, who does? I’m sure many of you reading this have seen the videos from the Chicago Board of Trade with all the members running around in their different colored coats, flashing hand signals, shouting buy or sell at the top of their lungs. It is there at the CBT, where other commodities are traded, are where the initial rates are set. Most long term mortgage rates are linked to the 10 Year Treasury Notes traded on the exchange. Why the 10 year Notes? Mainly because they are considered one of the safest bond instruments in the world. When the 10 Year Note goes up in price and the yield goes down, over the course of the next few days. the lower price will be reflected in the conforming mortgage rates.

But with the higher priced homes in California, where most are above the conforming loan limit, we move into the jumbo loan range above $417,000. Since the stimulus package things have changed for the jumbo market. Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are involved, we now have what are known as Agency Jumbos. These are jumbos that range between $417,001 and $662,500 here in Sonoma County, and are priced by Fannie and Freddie themselves. Up until the end of April however, the difference between the conforming rate and agency jumbo rates was still wide. It was nearly 1/2 point to 3/4 points. But in late April, both Fannie and Freddie narrowed that gap down to 1/4 to 3/8 points difference. Loans above the $662,500 mark are still considered jumbo loans and are priced by the lenders themselves at a much higher rate than the agency jumbos to attract investors to purchase them. Compared to agency jumbos, the standard jumbos are priced somewhere around 7.625% to 8 1/2 %. Why so high? Because investors are skittish about the higher loan amounts and want incentive to buy them.

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