Refinance Now, If You Can

April 13, 2010 — -- Douglas Hibbard would love to get his old Mississippi home off his hands. He had no luck two years ago, when he left Horn Lake, Miss., for a new job as a pastor of a church in Monticello, Ark. He tried to sell the house but no one was buying, so he rented it out instead.

Now Hibbard is facing a monthly mortgage payment that will soon head north of $1,000, thanks to rising insurance costs and a tax bill that's grown because Hibbard no longer qualifies for a homestead tax exemption.

With no prospective buyers on the horizon, Hibbard, 33, is looking at a money-saving strategy: to refinance his mortgage to a lower interest rate.

"Even at 6.75 or 6.5 percent -- even that would help," he said.

Average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages jumped from 5.04 percent to 5.31 percent last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

But some say that, despite the increase, homeowners who don't plan on selling their homes soon should still consider refinancing now, before rates rise even higher.

The MBA predicts that by the end of the year, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage will rise to 5.8 percent. By 2011, according to the association, the rate will hit at least 6 percent.

MBA Vice President of Research Mike Fratantoni and others say that last month's end to the Federal Reserve's mortgage-buying program is the main factor behind the recent rate increase, while Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, cites the improving economy.

"When the economy improves, investors start to look for a better return on their money," McBride said. "They're usually going to find that better return in other asset classes like stocks, so (mortgage-backed) bonds have to pay higher rates just to keep investors from fleeing for other asset classes."

Both men agree that even higher rates are on the horizon, because of improvement in the economy and anticipated increases in interest rates on government debt (which can force hikes in other interest rates, including mortgage rates.)

"The opportunity that exists now is the ability to lock in fixed mortgage rates that are still pretty close to record lows and that's not an opportunity that's going to hang around forever," McBride said.