If you are planning to buy a unit from foreclosed homes for sales or if you are thinking of refinancing your mortgage to make your monthly payments more affordable, do them now to take advantage of low mortgage rates, according to mortgage brokers and lenders.

Brokers and lenders said mortgage rates can fall and rise in short intervals. They noted that in August last year, the rate for a fixed-rate 30-year mortgage loan was approximately 6.75 percent. The current rate of 4.75 percent can rise in the next weeks or months.

Timothy Dwyer, chief executive of mortgage provider Entitle Direct, said that the current 4.75 percent rate would allow a borrower to take out a $400,000 loan with a $2,086 monthly payment. If a prospective buyer waits for the price of a house to get down to $325,000 while the rate rises and reaches 6.75 percent, his monthly payment would be $2,100.

In Southwest Florida, homeowners are now refinancing their loans at 4.75 percent. Many of them are taking advantage of programs to protect their homes from being added to inventories of foreclosed homes for sales.

Leslie Prosser, a 34-year-old employee of the Collier County Education Association, said she and her partner were able to refinance the $138,000 loan they took out to buy a three-bedroom house in Estero.

The couple’s original mortgage rate of 6.75 percent was reduced to the current rate of 4.75 percent. Now, their monthly payment is down by about $200. Prosser advised homeowners to first talk with a mortgage counselor to learn how they can prevent their houses from becoming foreclosed homes for sales.

A report from the Mortgage Bankers Association released this week showed that more than 69 percent of all home loan applications nationwide were from loan refinancing applicants.

David Hall, head of the First Community Bank of Southwest Florida, said there are two major reasons why some loan refinancing applications are not processed quickly: low home values and mortgage-backed securities.

Hall explained that refinancing applications are not processed when the loan amount is higher than the market price of the house, which has declined because of the low prices of foreclosed homes for sales. In other cases, banks refuse to lend at current low rates because they could find themselves paying more for their investment loans than what they are earning from the mortgage loans.

Additionally, Hall said that institutions that buy mortgage loans from banks are now strict with loan documentations. They are now making sure that borrowers are employed in stable positions and are earning enough money to be able to pay loans and not put their houses at risk of becoming foreclosed homes for sales.