Home mortgage loan rates stabilized last week but they were quite volatile for the entire month of December. At the present time we are seeing mortgage interest rates at 4.95%. Today the 30 year fixed mortgage rate has dropped from 4.97% to 4.95%. When looking at a historical chart of mortgage rates you can clearly see that this is a very low level.

Many homeowners will look to refinance their current home loan in the month of January. The number of refinance applications always increases in this month as people analyze their personal finances in the new year. It will be interesting to see how much refinance applications jump in January of 2010.

Pres. Obama and his staff have worked very hard to keep interest rates low for an extended period of time. The Federal Reserve Bank has been buying mortgage-backed securities for quite some time and this has helped mortgage rates stay near historically low levels. In March the Federal Reserve plans to stop buying mortgage-backed securities which could push mortgage rates higher.

Many analysts have predicted that mortgage interest rates will move up by at least one full percentage point when the Federal Reserve Bank stops buying mortgage-backed securities. No one knows if this will already be baked into mortgage rates by that time but there is a very good chance that we could see mortgage rates around 6% when the Fed stops this purchase program.

You do not want to be sitting on the sidelines hoping for mortgage rates to drop when they start to move higher. Many homeowners have been thinking about submitting a refinance application but have not followed through with this thought. It might be a good idea to take action sooner rather than later.