For the second week in a row, home lending rates were lower — and there are no indications that rates will rise over the next week.
Freddie Mac had 30-year fixed rates averaging
3.92 percent in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week that ended on Jan. 14.
Long-term mortgage rates retreated from 3.97 percent in the week ended Jan. 7 — when interest rates on residential loans were also down.
Mortgage rates have climbed, however, from
3.66 percent one year earlier.
Fixed mortgage rates aren’t likely to be much different next week, maybe a couple basis points lower, according to Mortgage Daily’s analysis of Treasury market activity.
Bankrate.com Chief Financial Analyst Greg McBride predicted in a telephone interview that rates will hold steady over the next week.
McBride explained that mortgage rates will be kept in check because of ongoing concerns about China
and the impact on the global economy.
A majority of panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week Jan. 14 to Jan. 20 predicted mortgage rates won’t move more than two BPS over the next week. A decline was projected by 38 percent, and only eight percent expected an increase.
Fifteen-year fixed rates averaged 3.19 percent in Freddie’s survey, seven BPS better than in the prior report. The spread between 15- and 30-year rates widened to
73 BPS from 71 BPS seven days earlier.
Five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.01 percent this week, according to Freddie, eight BPS better than in the previous report.
One-year ARMs averaged 2.68 percent in the week ended Jan. 12,
according to HSH. One-year ARMs averaged 2.79 percent the prior week.
The index for the one-year ARM, the yield on the one-year Treasury note, closed at 0.55 percent Thursday, sinking from 0.66 percent seven days earlier, according to Department of the Treasury data.
A modest ARM competitor to the one-year Treasury yield is the six-month London Interbank Offered Rate, which was 0.85 percent as of Wednesday, Bankrate.com reported. That was no different than in last week’s report.
ARMs made up 13.0 percent of all rate locks tracked in the Jan. 8 U.S. Mortgage Market Index report from OpenClose and Mortgage Daily. ARM share was slashed from 21.3 percent in the previous week’s report.
