Interest rates on single-family loans this past week fell to the lowest level since last year, and the next report could see a similar decline.
On loans that are utilized to finance a home purchase, 30-year fixed rates on conforming conventional mortgages averaged 4.14 percent in July.
That turned out to be slightly less than during the
preceding month, when average long-term mortgage rates came in at 4.15 percent.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported the rates based on a small survey of mortgage bankers.
Freddie Mac, which is regulated by FHFA, reported in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey that 30-year fixed rates averaged 3.82 percent in the seven days ended Aug. 31 — the lowest it’s been since it was 3.57 percent in the week ended Nov. 10, 2016.
The average dropped 4 basis points from the prior week but was 38 BPS higher than a year prior.
“Recent releases of positive economic data could halt the downward trend of mortgage rates,” Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sean Becketti said in the survey.
Mortgage Daily’s analysis of Treasury market activity, however, suggests that 30-year fixed rates could be around 3 BPS lower in Freddie’s next survey.
Half of the panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Aug. 30 to Sept. 6 expected no change in rates over the next week, though 42 percent predicted a decline of at least 3 BPS, and only 8 percent projected an increase.
But an exceptionally strong jobs report tomorrow could send rates higher.
Jumbo interest rates were
6 BPS more than conforming rates in the U.S. Mortgage Market Index report from Mortgage Daily and OpenClose. The spread thinned from 7 BPS the previous week.
On 15-year mortgages, fixed rates averaged 3.12 percent in Freddie’s report, 4 BPS lower than in the week ended Aug. 24. At
70 BPS, the spread between 15- and 30-year rates was no different than in the last report.
A 3-basis-point decline left five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid, adjustable-rate mortgages averaging 3.14 percent in Freddie’s latest survey.
The index for hybrid ARMs, the yield on the one-year Treasury note, closed today at 1.23 percent, the same as last Thursday, according to data reported by the Department of the Treasury.
Another, less-utilized, ARM index — the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate — dipped to 1.45 percent Wednesday from 1.46 percent seven days earlier, according to Bankrate.com.
ARM share in the latest Mortgage Market Index was 9.5 percent, thinning from 10.5 percent in the prior report.
