WASHINGTON–Much of the country’s attention will be on the Federal Reserve Board here today, which will conclude its two-day meeting with an announcement on whether or not it intends to increase rates.
Fed watching has been a cottage industry for more than a year, and to date the regular predictions the Fed will be raising benchmark interest rates have also been regularly wrong. But analysts are again predicting that the Fed will announce a small increase today, the Fed’s last meeting of 2015. The Fed has kept rates at near 0% since 2008.
At least one analyst has predicted that Fed rate increases could actually be good for housing. “One of the biggest headwinds in the housing market today is tight credit,” said the analyst. “There’s virtually no non-agency lending…nothing outside of QM, other than jumbo loans to rich borrowers the banks want to grab as customers for other services. Higher interest rates would actually allow for loans to be priced in a way that accommodated some degree of risk.”
CUToday.info will provide coverage as soon as an announcement is made.