For Better and Worse

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage interrupted five consecutive weekly declines by edging up 3 basis points from last week to 6.47%, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey announcement. A year ago, the average was 0.76% lower.

“We expect that mortgage rates will continue to fluctuate as new economic data are released, but still remain in the 6.5 to 7 percent range for the rest of the year,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie chief economist, in a written statement.

Sixty of the 100 mortgage bankers, brokers and other individuals surveyed by Bankrate.com this week forecasted that rates will remain relatively unchanged over the next 35 to 45 days, 30 believed rates would rise and the remainder foresaw a fall.

The 15-year reportedly averaged 6.16%, or 2 BPS higher than a week ago.

The closely-watched 10-year Treasury yield closed today at 4.78%, five BPS higher than the previous week.

Up 3 BPS to 6.14% this week was the average for 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages, Freddie said.

The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM average reportedly climbed 4 BPS from last week to 5.63%. The 1-year T-bill itself was up 0.01% within a week to 5.02% Tuesday, Federal Reserve data showed.

Meanwhile, the ARM share of mortgage application activity decreased from the previous week to 26% — the lowest level since October 2003, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday.

Overall application volume improved about 2 percent for the week ending Sept. 1 as purchase money demand increased 4% and offset a 1% decline in refinance requests, MBA said.

Accordingly, the refinance share reportedly inched down from the prior week to 41%.