There was a nice decline in average rates for residential loans this past week. But one forecast has fixed rates giving back all the improvement over the next week.
At 4.40 percent, prospective mortgage borrowers were treated to 30-year fixed rates that were 4 basis points less than in the previous seven-day period.
That is according to the Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended April 5 from Freddie Mac, which had the thirty year 30 BPS higher than the same seven days in 2017.
Trade-related anxiety in financial markets was at least partly responsible for the descension, according to Freddie Mac Deputy Chief Economist Len Kiefer.
LendingTree reported that annual percentage rate offered by its network for 30-year fixed-rate loans to finance a home purchase averaged
4.85 percent in March, climbing 5 BPS from February. But the average for borrowers with the best profiles was just 4.25 percent.
On Monday, LendingTree said its
Mortgage Rate Competition Index was 0.56 for purchase mortgages, the same as a week earlier but up 0.11 from a year earlier. On an individual borrower level, the index measures the median spread between the highest and lowest APR available on LendingTree’s platform.
“The Mortgage Rate Competition has widened as rates increase, reflecting how mortgage lenders have unique business circumstances that impact how they change the rates at which they can offer consumers loans,” LendingTree said.
Mortgage Daily’s analysis of Treasury market activity suggests fixed mortgage rates could be in the neighborhood of 6 BPS worse in Freddie’s next survey.
But a plurality of panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week April 4 to April 10 predicted rates will fall at least 3 BPS over the next week. The remaining 54 percent were evenly split over whether rates will not change or will rise.
In the U
.S. Mortgage Market Index from Mortgage Daily and OpenClose, jumbo interest rates were 6 BPS more than conforming rates reported last week by Freddie. The spread was slashed from 13 BPS in the preceding week.
Fifteen-year fixed rates averaged 3.87 percent, off 3 BPS from Freddie’s last report. The difference between 15-year rates and long-term rates was 53 BPS, slightly more narrow than 54 BPS a week prior.
A 4-basis-point week-over-week decline left five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaging 3.62 percent in Freddie’s survey.
Borrowers with hybrid ARMs see adjustments to their interest rates based on the yield on the one-year Treasury note, which was reported by the Treasury Department to have closed at 2.07 percent Thursday, off from 2.09 percent seven days earlier.
Bankrate.com reported the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate at 2.46 percent as of Wednesday, creeping up from 2.45 percent the previous Wednesday.
As LIBOR nears its 2021 retirement, the Federal Reserve Board has began publishing a recommended replacement index: Secured Overnight Financing Rates.
SOFR was reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 1.74 percent as of Wednesday.
ARM share of rate-lock activity was 17.8 percent in the latest Mortgage Market Index report,
widening from 15.0 percent one week prior.
