OK, all you would-be business editors, keep your pens off my headline! Take it from a (former) real business editor, I didn’t write it wrong and you ain’t reading it wrong!

Bankrate.com Chart

Call it “addition by subtraction,” or the new math of real estate: For the past couple of months, interest rates have gone up faster than home prices have gone down — at least in most parts of the country.

CNBC reporter Diana Olick laid it out in her Realty Check blog earlier today:

“Last night the Bankrate.com overnight average on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit 5.19 percent. We were at 4.24 percent barely two months ago. Depending on who you ask, that jump in rates will add anywhere from 6 to 9 percent to the price of a home. That takes away significant purchasing power.”

While home prices have been dropping in many areas of the country — and bumping along the bottom in others — there aren’t many places where they’ve dropped 6 to 9 percent in the past two months. From there, even I can do the math.

Tags: Almaden Valley Real Estate, Blossom Valley Real Estate, housing market, Interest Rates, Timing the real estate market

Posted on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Housing Market, Interest Rates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.