It’s been a rocky road of late for mortgages. As if the historic passage of years of depressed housing sales followed by an outright housing crisis weren’t enough, the expiration of a government homebuyers’ tax credit in early 2010 caused the market to plunge yet further. Moreover, an unemployment rate that’s projected to exceed 9 percent throughout 2011, and the fact that home purchases are still under pressure from foreclosures, do not bode well for the immediate future. Then there is the newly-issued government cost-cutting recommendation that threatens to increase the deleterious effect. But this – quite literally – will take an Act of Congress -- and one highly unlikely to succeed into the bargain.

The heroes of this scenario are, of course, mortgage rates. There is now a new era of historic lows when it comes to mortgage rates, and there is nothing like it. At this writing, these rates boast an average 30-year fixed mortgage of 4. 28 percent, barely higher that the 4.21 percent rate reported last month for the week ending October 8th, 2010.  That was the lowest rate going back to 1990, and as a consequence of such numbers, the amount of mortgage applications written throughout 2010 rose at an amazing clip, as home purchases similarly increased. Mortgage rates also performed yeoman-like work in the refinancing market, which more that doubled in the course of the year. Thus low mortgage rates, and the increased sales and refinancing that have resulted from them, helped stabilize the formerly stricken housing market clearing away some of the clouds that have hovered above it for years.