A small decline in mortgage rates this past week could be followed by a slightly larger drop next week. Two indices for adjustable-rate mortgages also moved lower.
On purchase-money transaction, borrowers who shopped on the LendingTree network were offered 30-year fixed rates with an average annual percentage rate of 4.99 percent in July.
Last month’s average APR turned out to be a single basis point lower than one month previous, according to Charlotte, North Carolina-based LendingTree.
Prospective borrowers who had the best profiles were offered average APRs of 4.31 percent.
The average was
4.59 percent during just the seven days ended Aug. 9, Freddie Mac reported in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 30 year was off a basis point from a week earlier but has risen 69 BPS from a year earlier.
Fixed rates could be roughly 3 BPS lower in Freddie’s next survey, according to a Mortgage Daily analysis of Treasury market activity.
But a majority of panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Aug. 8 to Aug. 14 disagreed with Mortgage Daily’s forecast and predicted rates won’t move during the next week. Twenty-seven percent expected rates will fall at least 3 BPS, and just 18 percent projected an increase.
Jumbo rates were 15 BPS more than conforming rates in the U.S. Mortgage Market Index report from Mortgage Daily and OpenClose for the week ended Aug. 3. The spread thinned from 18 BPS a week earlier.
Fifteen-year fixed rates averaged 4.05 percent in Freddie’s report, decreasing 3 BPS from the week ended Aug. 2. The spread between 15- and 30-year rates widened to 54 BPS from 52 BPS in the prior report.
Freddie reported five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages at 3.90 percent, down 3 BPS.
The yield on the one-year Treasury note, which determines rate changes on hybrid ARMs, closed Thursday at 2.44 percent, the Department of the Treasury reported. The yield was 2.45 percent the previous Thursday.
A legacy ARM index, the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate, was reported by Bankrate.com at 2.52 percent as of Wednesday. LIBOR was 2.53 percent in last week’s report.
Replacing LIBOR is the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, which was reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 1.88 percent as of yesterday, no different than the preceding Wednesday.
ARM share in the latest Mortgage Market Index report was 17.4 percent, thinning from 18.8 percent the previous week.