“Memory Lane” takes a stroll through financial history because the economy has a funny habit of repeating itself.
Buzz: Mortgage rates have run below the inflation rate for 21 months, breaking a record-setting streak from nearly a half-century ago.
Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the monthly average of 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates from Freddie Mac and compared them with the annualized inflation rates from the Consumer Price Index.
Numbers: You might be thinking that mortgage rates are high as the Federal Reserve tries to ice a nasty bout of inflation with pricier money. But history suggests home loans are relatively cheap when compared with the rising cost of