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| Rates continued to decline — falling to the lowest levels of the year.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.11%, down 3 basis points from last week to the lowest level since the week ending Jan. 19, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey released today. At this time a year ago, the average was 6.32%. “Continued signs of slowing in the housing market and weakness in the manufacturing sector helped keep mortgage rates down this week,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie chief economist, in an announcement. Half of the 100 mortgage “experts” surveyed by Bankrate.com this week believe mortgage rates will remain relatively unchanged over the next 30 to 45 days, 38 percent see a decline over that period and the rest believe rates will rise. The 15-year averaged 5.84%, also 3 BPS below last week’s level, Freddie said. The 10-year Treasury note, or gauge for longer-term mortgages, yielded 4.49% near midday, compared to 4.46% a week ago. The averages for 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages and 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM also each decreased by 3 BPS over the week to 5.92% and 5.43%, respectively, Freddie reported. The gauge for 1-year ARMs, the 1-year Treasury bill, was at 4.86% on Tuesday — 12 BPS lower than a week earlier, Federal Reserve data showed. The volume of loan applications rose 8 percent from the previous week through a 14 percent jump in refinance requests and a 5 percent increase in purchase money loan demand, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Wednesday. As the refinance share of mortgage applications rose from the prior week to 50% — the highest share since April 2004 — the ARM share edged down to 24% — the lowest level since October 2003, MBA said. |
Coco Salazar is an assistant editor and staff writer for MortgageDaily.com. e-mail: [email protected]
