Andrew and Peggy Sheren can’t resist a good deal, especially when it comes to financing their McLean, Virginia home.

“We’ve gone from an interest rate from something like greater than 6 percent down to the lowest interest rate we currently have is three and an eighth percent,” Andrew remembers. They have refinanced their home four times in four years, taking equity out only the first time for a renovation, but essentially cutting their interest rate in half.

Negative economic reports of late have pushed the rate on the popular 30 year fixed to below 4.5 percent, the lowest this year and just about a quarter percent off the 50-year lows we saw last summer; adjustable-rate products are even lower. When investors see bad economic news, they pull money out of the stock market and park it in bonds. The price of bonds goes up, the yield goes down, and mortgage rates follow down.

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Despite the lowest interest rate on the 30 year fixed in six months, mortgage applications to purchase a new home fell last week, over 3 percent. In fact, purchase application volume has been falling, on average, for the past four weeks, which is particularly troubling in this, the supposedly busiest season of the year for home buying.

So what’s going on?

I’m not going to boil it down to some generalization that there is no demand for housing out there, and everyone’s afraid of falling prices. There is demand. Homes are selling. But an historically high number of these purchases are to all-cash buyers, because the mortgage market is just so tight. Fannie, Freddie and FHA rule the roost, and their new rules and fees are pricing some buyers out while disqualifying many more.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for stricter underwriting, given the brutal effects of the opposite. I do, however, believe that as government tries to shut the door on Fannie and Freddie, it must open the door to private mortgage investors.

That’s why I was particularly interested to see the testimony today from the CEO of the only player in the private label game. Redwood Trust President and CEO Martin Hughes boiled the situation down pretty clearly.

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