Fixed interest rates on residential loans improved over the past seven days, The odds over the next seven days are for further improvement.
During the week that concluded on Sept. 7, Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey had 30-year fixed rates averaging 3.78 percent.
Thirty-year mortgage rates have not been this low since the week ended Nov. 10, 2016, when fixed rates averaged 3.57 percent.
Long-term mortgage rates improved by 4 basis points compared to the prior week. Thirty-year rates have worsened, though, by 34 BPS versus the same seven days last year.
Another 4-or-so-basis-point decline is possible in Freddie’s next survey based on Mortgage Daily’s analysis of Treasury market activity.
A plurality of panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Sept. 6 to Sept. 13 predicted a decline of at least 3 BPS in mortgage rates over than next week. A third expected no change, and a fifth projected an increase.
The U.S. Mortgage Market Index report from Mortgage Daily and OpenClose for the week ended Sept. 1, 2017, indicated that rates on jumbo mortgages were 1 basis more than conforming rates, thinning from 6 BPS the prior week.
Freddie’s survey had 15-year fixed rates averaging 3.08 percent, a 4-basis-point improvement over the preceding week. At 70 BPS, the spread between 15- and 30-year rates was the same as the prior week.
A single-basis-point rise in the five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid, adjustable-rate mortgage left the average at 3.15 percent, Freddie reported.
The Department of the Treasury reported that the yield on the one-year Treasury note, which is utilized to determine rate changes on hybrid ARMs, was 1.21 percent as of Thursday, down from 1.23 percent seven days sooner.
Bankrate.com reported that the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate, which is used as an index on some legacy ARMs, was 1.46 percent as of Wednesday. LIBOR was up a smudge from 1.45 percent the preceding Wednesday.
Also serving as an index on some legacy ARMs is the 11th District Cost of Funds Index, which the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco reported at 0.707 percent as of July. COFI increased from 0.657 percent in June.
ARM share in the most-recent Mortgage Market Index report was 10.5 percent, wider than 9.5 percent in the previous report.
