
with Keith Gumbinger, Vice President HSH.com, 25-year Observer on Mortgage and Consumer Debt, Contributor – Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and more
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Keith has followed the mortgage and consumer debt sectors for about 25 years. He’s seen the cycles and shares his thoughts on how attractive and stable mortgage rates currently are, relative to high and sometimes extreme volatility in the past, with rates rising as high as 18% in the mid-1980s. He also shares his prognostications on where rates are headed over the next few years, relative to historical averages of about 6%.
And while Adjustable Rate Mortgages or ARMs received a bad rap going into 2007 because of the high risks that lenders were taking, he believes things have gotten much better in the ARM market with stable, respected products that offer significant value and rates that are about 1% below 30-year fixed rate mortgages. Keith shows us how certain home buyers can significantly benefit from ARMs without the risk that most people have come to associate with that mortgage category.
Finally, he tells us why it’s still worth going through all the paperwork that’s now needed to get a mortgage or a home equity line of credit or HELOC.