If you're a homeowner, have you refinanced your mortgage lately — to slash your interest rate and monthly payment? Maybe you've been thinking you need to refi and take advantage of historically low mortgage rates, but you've been putting it off and putting it off.
Well, none other than investing sage Warren Buffett, who turned 90 on Sunday, would probably tell you to stop procrastinating. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have been dirt-cheap in 2020 and are currently averaging just 2.91%, according to the nearly 50-year-old survey from mortgage giant Freddie Mac. That's close to the all-time low of 2.88%, reached in early August.
"This is a very good time to borrow money, which means it may not be such a great time to lend money, but it’s good for the country that it’s a good time to borrow money," billionaire Buffett said recently during his company's annual shareholders meeting, held online.
He's been on a borrowing binge himself, and at some truly unbelievably rates. You can do pretty well, too, if you follow his lead.
Borrow like Buffett
To shore up an economy taking a pounding from the coronavirus, the Federal Reserve in mid-March slashed a key interest rate nearly to zero, matching an all-time low it established during the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession.
Buffett hasn't figured out a way to borrow at 0% interest (at least not yet), but his Berkshire Hathaway company did come close earlier this year as it benefited from the low-rate environment the Fed helped create.
In an April filing with U.S. regulators, Berkshire said that through a bond offering priced in Japanese yen, it would be taking on the equivalent of over $1.8 billion in debt — at rates ranging from 2% to just 0.674%.
You won't find mortgage rates way down in that neighborhood, but they have been breaking records thanks in part to the Fed's extreme rate cutting and its other moves to help the economy. Thirty-year mortgages have been popping up at unbelievably low rates, even under 2%.
During a 2017 CNBC interview, Buffett called the 30-year mortgage "the best instrument in the world" — because of your ability to refinance when you find a lower rate.
"If you’re wrong and rates go to 2%, which I don’t think they will, you pay it off," he said at the time. "It’s a one-way renegotiation. It is an incredibly attractive instrument for the homeowner and you’ve got a one-way bet."
Still on the fence? Jump off
Many households have seized upon the sliding rates on home loans. During the spring, Americans were applying for refinance mortgages at three and four times the levels seen a year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.