A brief article depicting why it is so difficult to make predictions on the overall mortgage market and where real estate is likely to go.
Making mortgage rate predictions is something that many market mavens and pundits have tried to do for many years. Most likely, ever since mortgage rates were posted for public knowledge. In 1971, Freddie Mac started collecting mortgage data and evolved into what is today a weekly report of where rates currently stand. This data is not always true for every market as some markets vary greatly because of supply and demand just as home prices vary greatly. With that known, how is it truly possible to be able to predict mortgage rates on a consistent basis. There are ways in which we can analyze the data and the one thing that continues to hold true with financial markets is that the past is a great predictor of the future.
Unfortunately, we really do not have enough data about the past to be able to make definitive predictions of the market. 1971 is not that long ago in terms of financial markets. There has really only been three major cycles in the overall stock market since then, so the data we have is just a scratch on the surface of what we would actually need. Market psychology is something that is often used to predict overall trends in markets, but that seems to be more of a longer term type of prediction. Going against the trend and doing the exact opposite of everyone else has seemed to make many investors quite rich. In the current market, everyone is saying that you should not buy a home or invest in real estate and I would imagine that there are many individuals who have some extra cash to spare that are just licking their lips to get their hands on some of the dirt cheap real estate available.
With this knowledge, you can make mortgage rate decisions on your own, but everyone says that there is no way rates can go back up; so you know what that means.
