Rising rates and a holiday week really put a dent in mortgage activity.
On Thursday, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended today that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 0.03 percent from last week’s record low to 4.35 percent. Freddie purchases mortgages from mortgage lenders then sells them to investors.
In the Mortech-Mortgage Daily Mortgage Market Index report for the week ended Wednesday, the difference between jumbo 30-year mortgages and conventional 30-year mortgages was unchanged from last week at 0.91 percent.
Mortgage rates are likely to continue higher in next week’s reports based on movement in the 10-year yield, which mortgage rates tend to follow. According to U.S. Department of the Treasury data, the 10-year yield climbed 0.14 percent from last Thursday until today, while the 30-year only moved up 0.03 percent during the same period.
But no change in mortgage rates was predicted by half of the panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Sept. 9 to Sept. 15.
The best product performance was turned in by the one-year Treasury-indexed ARM, which fell 0.04 percent this week to 3.46 percent, Freddie reported.
Mortgage activity tumbled this week, with the Mortgage Market Index falling to 259 from 344 seven days earlier.
The average loan amount in the Mortgage Market Index report fell to $210,537 from $214,263.
Feeding the weekly decline in activity were refinances, which accounted for 60 percent of activity this week compared to 64 percent last week, the Mortech-Mortgage Daily report indicated.
