Holy cow! Look at those mortgage rates

A story at USA Today -- "Mortgage rates at 37-year low: Average 5.19% for 30 years" -- disrupted our partner blogger J.D. Roth's vacation reverie. All of a sudden, J.D., who's not an impulsive guy, is thinking about refinancing his home.

He checked Bankrate.com and found a low rate of 5.085%, which would reduce J.D.'s payments to $1,111 and save him $275 a month. But wait. It could get even better, he wrote in a post at Get Rich Slowly.

A company that advertises at Bankrate listed a mortgage interest rate of 4.25%. "A 4.25% 30-year mortgage? My jaw dropped. Literally. Could this be real?" wrote J.D., whose mortgage is at 6.25%.

• Bing: Check current mortgage rates
  

Yes, the mortgage market looks wonderful for those who can qualify to refinance. Reader "Jason B." wrote to J.D. about a problem that was unheard of not so long ago. The reader is refinancing and locked in at 5.25%. Now he's paid another $300 application fee to lock in at 5.0%. Since then, he wrote, "the rate has dropped to 4.875% and could go even lower!"

What should J.D. do? At last count 71 people had chimed in with their two cents.

Related articles:

The other side of the rock-bottom mortgage

Time to refinance is now

4 reasons not to refinance

Published Dec. 19, 2008