Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) declared that interest rates on long term, fixed rate mortgages were marginally up this week ending Thursday. Rates for 30-year fixed rate mortgages ticked up from 4.47% to 4.48% with an average 0.7 points, in the past week, says a report from Bloomberg.
Freddie Mac: Mortgage rates changed marginally
In the previous year, rates for the 30 year fixed rate mortgages averaged 3.35%. Separately, rates for 15 year fixed-rate mortgages increased from 3.51% to 3.52% with an average 0.7% points this week compared to the same week, previous year when 15 year, fixed-rate loans averaged 2.65%.
In the segment of shorter duration loans, rates for five years Treasury-indexed, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages came in at 3% this week with an average 0.4% point. In the previous week, rates averaged 2.96% compared to 2.7% in the previous year.
Rates for one-year treasury-indexed, adjustable-rate loans averaged 2.56% in the current week, which is a decline from 2.57% in the week ago. One year loan came in at 0.5 point. In the same week a year ago, rates for the one-year, adjustable-rate loans averaged 2.56%.
Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC)’s vice president and chief economist said that the mortgage rates went through some minor changes. “Real GDP was revised upwards to 4.1 percent growth in the third quarter.” He added that the existing home sales declined 4.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4,900,000 in November.
Freddie Mac: Shutdown might have affected home sales
[drizzle]The latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) revealed that mortgage applications declined last week also. Meanwhile, the Market Composite Index, which is a gauge for total loan application volume, declined 6.3%. The refinance Index dropped 8% and Purchase Index dropped 4%.
Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics mentioned in his statement that mortgage application volume declined further, in the last week, after the Federal Reserve started gradually withdrawing its stimulus package. Rates surged and refinancing application volume shed to its lowest level since November 2008. He added that Purchase application volume declined, continuing to run more than 10% below last year’s rate.
According to the National Association of Realtors, last week the total number of individuals who bought existing homes, in November, declined once again. They believe that peak rates and the after-effect of the partial government shutdown in October might have affected some sales.
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