Cays, Village, Shores Homes and Condos for Sale

Did you get a good mortgage rate when you purchased your Coronado golf course homes? If not, now is the time to act fast. The recent surprise rate cut by the Federal Reserve not only held Wall Street and investors in thrall, it's also kicked into high gear a rush by owners of Coronado golf course homes to refinance their mortgages at today's lower rates.  If you are in the market to buy one of many Coronado golf course homes, this is great timing!

Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages now carry an average interest rate of 5.57 percent, down from 5.75 percent last week and from 6.32 percent a year ago, according to a Bankrate.com national survey. That's bringing them within shouting distance of the historic low of 5.21 percent set in June 2003, when the housing sector was expanding quickly and there was a stampede of mortgage refinancings.

The Fed's unexpected reduction of the overnight bank lending rate by three-quarters of a point to 3.5 percent this week doesn't necessarily mean mortgage rates will drop by a similar amount. Mortgage lenders tend to peg their rates instead to the yield on the 1-year Treasury note or 3-month London Interbank Offered rates.

However, the Fed's action was a response to worrisome economic and credit market developments that also have been pushing mortgage rates lower in recent months. And it seems to have set off a light bulb above the heads of many homowners.

In general, a mortgage is deemed "refinanceable" if it is 0.40 percentage point above current average mortgage rates. And the recent drops in mortgage rates have made up to 7 million mortgages, or more than 70 percent of U.S. mortgages, eligible for refinancing, according to Tony Crescenzi, a fixed-income analyst at Miller Tabak.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said refinancings recently reached their highest levels since April, 2004. The trade group's Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, rose 8.3 percent from the previous week's level.

David Motley, president of Fort Worth-based Colonial National Mortgage, which originates loans in all 50 states, is expecting an even larger applications surge this week and beyond.

"For the last six to eight months all people have heard about is the subprime crunch," he said. "There is an incorrect impression that because of the subprime mess regular people can't get a loan or a refinancing right now."

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