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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (36026)	8/6/2002 8:28:25 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

A few months ago I spent several days looking through land records to see what interest rates used to be on home mortgages here in Fairfax. Universally 6%, throughout the 19th century up until the Great Depression. That puzzled me for a while until I realized it probably had something to do with the usery laws. 6% was the maximum that could be charged by Virginia law. Back in those days, mortgages were not for 30 years, either, they were for shorter terms and frequently could be called by the lender. During the late 1920's (before the Great Depression) there was a depression in farming districts (which was most of the country) and the federal government started lending money to farmers to keep them from going bankrupt. Those books are very interesting reading -- people pledged all kinds of things, from cattle to flowers (commercial flower growers.) My recollection is that those interest rates were around 5 to 5.5%. More interest rates here: nber.org We just refinanced our mortgage at 6% with 2.5 points. We could have gotten below 6% but my husband did not want to deal with a company I found on the Internet.