This weekend's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has had the immediate effect of lowering mortgage interest rates (now closer to 6%), at least here in Colorado Springs. Apparently there has been a risk factor built into rates that has held them higher than they otherwise would have been. Interest rates and gas prices are both very hard for me to get my head around. With the discount rate at 2%, 6.5% mortgage rates did not make so much sense to me. And just like with gas, bad news seems to make them jump, but good news never has the equivalent effect on them going down. If gas prices dropped as much as crude oil has, we'd be at $2.75 - $3 per gallon, or perhaps even less! As it stands, locally we are closer to $3.50 per gallon, which is much better than $4, but not great.

Yesterday was our monthly sales rally, and there were a couple of interesting statistics discussed. The "high end" of our market is really still hurting, with only .6% of sales over $800k. 88% of sales are under $400k so far this year. The "sale to list price" ratio continues at over 97%, indicating that despite rumors of "great deals", the deal is on the asking price, not the result of people coming down huge chunks at the negotiating table.