When we did that, we quickly found lower rates at various banks. Bankrate’s average mortgage rates, gleaned from among more than 100 banks, averaged 4.88 percent, but online mortgage broker Morty was advertising a 30-year fixed loan with an annual percentage rate (APR) of 4.285 percent. You can also go to Bankrate to compare mortgage rates and find the best deals. Go to their websites and fill out preliminary forms to get interest rate estimates immediately or calls from company representatives who can quickly get quotes for you. Shop for a mortgage at a variety of lenders, including banks mortgage brokers online originators, such as Quicken Loans and aggregators, like LendingTree. Here are the steps you should take to find the lowest-priced loan available. But McBride and others say there’s still plenty of appetite in the real estate market, so if you want to stay in the game, you’ll need tactics to get the best mortgage possible. Those higher rates, spurred by inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war, and recent moves by the Federal Reserve, might be enough to deter some would-be home shoppers-especially when combined with an average 32.3 percent increase in home prices since last year, as reported by Zillow. “It’s akin to a 17 percent increase in home prices, just since January.” “This has been the fastest and sharpest run-up in mortgage rates in 28 years,” says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate, a financial information website. And that rate is 1.75 percentage points higher than it was at the beginning of the year. That’s an interest rate not seen since 2011, save for a couple of days in 2018.
With mortgage interest rates hitting heights not seen for years, home buyers are going to have to think and act more strategically than ever to get a deal on that all-important loan, experts say.Īverage 30-year fixed mortgages recently exceeded 5 percent, according to Mortgage News Daily, which tracks daily, real-time changes in lenders’ rates.