Not a subscriber? Click here to learn
more.
|
| Home | About Us | Resources | Archive | Free Reports | Market Window |
Buy or Re-Fi Today... Mortgage Rates Now Below 4%!By
Friday, September 23, 2011
House prices are dirt-cheap... Mortgage rates are at record lows...
And this week, the U.S. Federal Reserve committed to push mortgage rates even lower to "help support conditions in the mortgage markets."
Banks have responded... As of this week, my local bank (Everbank) is offering 30-year mortgages below 4%. I checked LendingTree and found the same thing.
Between "printing money" and pushing mortgage rates lower, it's clear the government wants to see the value of your house go up.
Everyone is scared of housing now. Housing prices have fallen by one-third, and nobody wants to get burned again.
But don't forget... prices are dirt-cheap, rates are at record lows, and the government is trying to force the price of your house higher.
With this in mind, I strongly believe housing prices won't go down much farther. It comes down to some basic math...
Consider this: The median existing home price in America is currently $168,000. But it might cost you roughly twice that to build one from scratch...
If you're going to build a typical 2,500-square-foot home, at a cost of $100 per foot... it'll cost you $250,000. And that's just building costs... by the time you add in the cost of the lot, permitting, labor, and more, you're up near $300,000.
You might be able to drive down the cost per foot a bit... But at $80 per foot, you're still looking at a $200,000 building cost, plus the lot and permitting. At the very best, you might get to $225,000.
This is 33% higher than the price of an existing home.
I believe that existing home prices have plenty of room to run higher. At these mortgage rates, and these home prices, housing is more affordable than it's ever been in America.
.png) If you're in a position to do it, now is the time to buy a home or refinance your existing home.
Don't catch yourself looking backwards at what we went through... A few years ago, houses were extremely expensive, and rates were much higher.
Instead, look forward. Today, housing is cheap. Mortgage rates are now below 4%. And the government has renewed its commitment to force home prices higher.
Why fight that?
While I can't promise you'll make a fortune, I do believe all three of these things will take effect at some point.
If you can, consider buying or refinancing today.
Good investing,
Steve
Further Reading:
"If you want to buy any investment for pennies on the dollar," Steve writes, "you have to be willing to buy when things appear bleak." Right now, Steve says he's personally pursuing some of the greatest values he's ever seen in real estate.
Steve is buying cheap real estate in a way few people are talking about. "Most people aren't aware of these sales. And even if they are, they're not willing to do the relatively small amount of homework," he writes. "You can get some incredible deals." Read more here: An Oceanfront Florida Condo... for $4,600.
Market NotesFREEPORT MCMORAN STAGES A MAJOR DOWNSIDE BREAKOUT "If the 'economic pessimists' are right, this is just the start of a major downtrend."
That's the bearish concern on copper we left you with in yesterday's Market Notes. In today's column, we'll add that if the pessimists are right, it's also "lights out" for stocks like Freeport McMoRan (FCX).
Freeport McMoRan is the world's largest publicly traded copper miner. Its "trophy" asset is the massive Grasberg mine in Indonesia. When large institutional traders want to trade copper, they often use shares of FCX to do the job.
As you can see from today's chart, FCX is suffering from sagging copper prices (along with worker strikes). After staging a huge rally from its 2009 lows, FCX spent most of this year in the $50-$60 range. But just this month, it broke through this range to hit its lowest point in a year. At best, this downside breakout is reason to keep avoiding economically sensitive mining stocks (as we warned you to do in June). At worst, it's the start of a big bust for the sector.
|
In The Daily Crux
Recent Articles
|
