mean affordability in the short team, and lead to significant savings over the long term. It’s very important that you knowwhen to lock in your mortgage rate. Mortgage rates change from day to day, and sometimes within the same day. “While advertising may have lured you in with an impressively low mortgage rate, that rate might not be available months from now when you close on your mortgage,” says Smith. The housing market is constantly changing, both up and down, and you don’t want to put yourself in the position of being at the whim of the market. You don’t want to miss out on a great rate, or cost yourself a lot of money down the road, should the market take a turn for the worse and you’re stuck paying a higher interest rate for a time, waiting and waiting for the market to settle and you can afford the rate again. If you’re concerned about the state of the market in your area, or worried that rates will climb even further before closing, your best bet is to lock in a mortgage rate, which is called a “mortgage rate lock.” WHAT’S A MORTGAGE RATE LOCK? First, let’s take a look at what a mortgage rate lock is. A mortgage rate lock is “an agreement between a borrower
and a lender that guarantees the borrower a specific interest rate on a mortgage,” says Smith (Investopedia). Bankrate.com expands on this definition of a rate lock as “an interest rate on a mortgage for a period of
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