Interest rates on home loans moved up slightly during the latest seven-day period, and there is little chance they will move much in the next week.
As of the week ended
Dec. 10, Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey had 30-year fixed mortgage rates averaging 3.95 percent.
The 30-year average crept up two basis points compared to the previous week’s report. It was also two BPS higher than the same week last year.
Rates have eased slightly since Freddie polled lenders this week, according to MBSQuoteline Director Joe Farr.
“There has been a small drop in MBS prices since Monday and Tuesday when the Freddie Mac survey was conducted, but the drop in price has not been enough to change the reported rate by more than a couple basis points,” Farr said in a written statement.
Fixed rates aren’t likely to be much different in Freddie’s next survey, according to an analysis by Mortgage Daily of Treasury market activity.
Forty-five percent of panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Dec. 10 to Dec. 16 agreed with Mortgage Daily’s forecast. A third predicted rates will increase by at least three BPS, and 22 percent expected a decline.
Interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 21 BPS less than on conforming loans in the U.S. Mortgage Market Index report from OpenClose and Mortgage Daily for the week ended Dec. 4, thinning from a negative 22-basis-point jumbo-conforming spread in the last report.
Freddie said 15-year fixed rates averaged 3.19 percent in its latest report, three BPS more than in the week ended Dec. 3. The difference between 15- and 30-year rates thinned to
76 BPS from 77 BPS a week prior.
At 3.03 percent, five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged four BPS more than in Freddie’s previous survey.
A three-basis-point rise from seven days earlier left one-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaging 2.64 percent. The one-year averaged 2.40 percent in the week ended Dec. 11, 2014.
The yield on the one-year Treasury note, which is utilized to determine rate changes to one-year ARMs, was 0.71 percent as of Thursday, according to the Department of the Treasury. The yield shot up from 0.57 percent one week prior.
At 0.72 percent as of Wednesday, the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate was
up nine BPS from seven days earlier. LIBOR is used an an index on a small share of ARMs.
ARMs accounted for 11.9 percent of all rate locks tracked in the latest Mortgage Market Index report. ARM share was fatter than 9.3 percent a week previous.
