Diana Olick reported earlier this week at CNBC Online that, “Escalating tensions over a trade war with China sent investors rushing to the relative safety of the bond market late last week. That pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which mortgage rates loosely follow, down sharply.
“The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage hit 3.70% on Friday, the lowest since November 2016, according to Mortgage News Daily. That rate will likely dip even lower Monday, as bond yields continue to fall.
“The drop last week meant that 8.2 million 30-year mortgage holders could likely qualify for a refinance and save at least 0.75% off of their current interest rate by doing so, according to a new tally by Black Knight, a mortgage software and analytics company.”
The CNBC update added that, “The size of that population, however, is still very sensitive to even the slightest rate moves, since so many borrowers have already refinanced to very low rates. Just a one-eighth of a point move lower could add another 1.5 million borrowers to the eligible refinance pool, and the same move in the other direction would knock 1.3 million out.”
