The average rate for a benchmark 30-year loan has dropped to 3.59 percent, down 12 basis points over the past week to the lowest rate in over a year and 38 basis points below the 3.97 percent rate in place prior to the Fed’s first rate hike in December.
The drop shouldn’t have caught any plugged-in readers by surprise.
“Hans Peter Christensen got some unusual news when he opened his most recent mortgage statement. His quarterly interest payment was negative 249 Danish kroner.
Instead of paying interest on the loan he got a decade ago to buy a house in this northern Denmark city, his bank paid him the equivalent of $38 in interest for the quarter. As of Dec. 31, his mortgage rate, excluding fees, stood at negative 0.0562%.”
Wow, negative interest rates at a retail level? Weird world we live in these days.