Mortgage Rates, Boosters, and Picks of The Week
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
Mortgage Rates At 14-Year Highs!
Mortgage rates have returned their highest levels since 2008, with rates back to 6%. This is a huge jump, increasing the average monthly payment on a new mortgage by about 42% (about $800/month on a $500,000 mortgage) versus the 3% rates available in 2020-2021.
Unfortunately, other than take a shorter-term or adjustable-rate mortgage (which have downsides/risks of their own), or make a larger down payment, there is relatively little one can do about these higher rates.
But, if you are in the process of buying a home, already locked in your mortgage rate, but have not yet closed on a purchase, make sure to read the fine print on your rate lock. If rates decline between signing and closing, you may be able to “re-lock” your interest rate for a small fee. We did this when buying our home a couple of years ago, saving us 0.25% on our interest rate on a 30 year mortgage and thousands of dollars over the life of our loan.
Bivalent Boosters
In other news, my wife and I got our new “bivalent” COVID boosters last week at CVS. We felt crappy the next day, mostly fine the following day, and 100% after that.
This recent opinion piece sums up my views on the bivalent booster pretty well. I’m happy to trade a day of feeling off in exchange for adequate protection through winter against the two current variants that now account for >95% of all new COVID cases.
And now, Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
Two uplifting stories about immigrants:
Former Afghan Fighter Pilot Now Firefighting as Newcomers Join U.S. Workforce
The Salvage Car Silk Road (Podcast)
And two great articles via The Browser, an excellent recommender of great long-form writing:
We Spoke With the Last Person Standing in the Floppy Disk Business
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.