Weekly interest rates on single-family loans moved higher, with 15-year rates taking the biggest hit. The spread between adjustable and fixed rates has recently thinned, pushing more borrowers into fixed rates.
Mortgage borrowers who have the best profiles were offered annual percentage rates of 3.75 percent during November for 30-year fixed-rate loans used to finance home purchases.
That
turned out to be the same APR that borrowers with the same profiles were offered by home lenders during the preceding month.
LendingTree reported the findings in its Mortgage Offers Report. The rates were based on offers made by lenders in the company’s network.
Last month’s rates were 3.69 percent on refinances, down a basis point from October, LendingTree said.
Freddie Mac reported in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey that 30-year fixed rates averaged 3.94 percent in the week ended Dec. 7, climbing 4 BPS from the prior week. But long-term rates were 19 BPS better than a year prior.
MBSQuoteline’s Joe Farr noted in a written statement that rates have fallen between 3 and 4 BPS since Freddie finished conducted its survey.
Panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Dec. 6 to Dec. 13 provided little insight into where rates might be headed over the next week, with 38 percent predicting rates won’t move more than 2 BPS and the remaining 62 percent evenly split over whether they will rise or fall.
In the U.S. Mortgage Market Index from Mortgage Daily and OpenClose for the week ended Dec. 1, interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 16 BPS higher than conforming rates. The spread was 14 BPS a week earlier.
At 3.36 percent in Freddie’s survey, 15-year fixed rates jumped 6 BPS from the week ended Nov. 30. The spread between 15- and 30-year rates thinned to 58 BPS from 60 BPS in the last survey.
Freddie reported that five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.35 percent, a 3-basis-point increase from the previous week.
Freddie Mac Deputy Chief Economist Len Kiefer noted in the report that as the spread between 30-year fixed rates and hybrid ARMs has been thinning, ARM share has become more narrow.
Data from the Treasury Department indicate that the index for hybrid ARMs, the yield on the one-year Treasury note, closed Thursday at 1.67 percent, 5 BPS higher than seven days earlier.
Another ARM index, the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate, was reported by Bankrate.com at 1.71 percent as of Wednesday,
climbing 5 BPS from the previous Wednesday.
ARM share was 9.5 percent in the latest Mortgage Market Index report, thinning from 12.8 percent the preceding week.
