Mortgage rates inched up for the third week in a row, after an encouraging jobs report last week signaled the economy may be on the mend.
Even with three weeks of increases, financing a home purchase or a mortgage refinancing is still inexpensive even compared with a year ago, according to the weekly survey by mortgage rate giant Freddie Mac.
Thirty-year, fixed-rate home loans averaged 4.87 percent with an average 0.7 point this week, up from 4.86 percent a week ago. A year ago, 30-year, fixed mortgages averaged 5.21 percent and fell as low as 4.17 percent in early November.
The rates on 15-year, fixed-rate residential mortgages averaged 4.10 percent with an average 0.7 point, up from 4.09 percent a week ago. A year ago, 15-year, fixed home loans averaged 4.52 percent and fell as low as 3.57 percent in early November.
Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national economy added 216,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell for the fifth consecutive month to 8.8 percent, marking the lowest rate in two years, Freddie Mac Chief Economist Frank Nothaft noted.
“Additionally, the private sector has gained 560,000 workers in the first quarter of this year, which represents to the largest quarterly increase since the first quarter of 2006,” Nothaft said.
