Monthly mortgage rates climbed to the highest level in two years, while the weekly average was the highest it’s been in more than four years.
During February,
annual percentage rates offered on purchase-money mortgages were 4.80 percent, up 25 basis points from January to the highest level since March 2016.
But for borrowers with the best profiles, APRs averaged just 4.22 percent last month. The APRs are based on 30-year mortgages that have fixed rates.
LendingTree revealed the averages in its Mortgage Offers Report – February 2018.
Average refinance APRs were 4.77 percent in February, climbing 31 BPS from a month earlier.
Freddie Mac reported in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey that 30-year fixed rates in the week ended March 8 averaged 4.46 percent
— the highest they’ve been since they were 4.51 percent in the week ended Jan. 9, 2014.
Thirty-year rates averaged 4.43 percent in last week’s report and 4.21 percent in the same week last year.
Half of the panelists surveyed by Bankrate.com for the week March 7 to March 13 predicted that mortgage rates will not move more than 2 BPS over the next week. Another 31 percent expected a decline, and just 19 percent forecasted an increase.
According to the U.S. Mortgage Market Index report from Mortgage Daily and OpenClose for the week ended March 2, interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 10 BPS higher than conforming rates quoted last week by Freddie. The spread was cut from 18 BPS the preceding week.
Freddie’s survey had 15-year fixed rates averaging 3.94 percent, up 4 BPS from the week ended March 1. Meanwhile, the spread between 15- and 30-year rates thinned to 52 BPS from
53 BPS last week.
At 3.63 percent, five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged a basis point more than in the last report.
The yield on the one-year Treasury note, which is used to determine rate changes on hybrid ARMs, was reported by the Department of the Treasury at 2.05 percent as of today’s close, the same as last Thursday.
Another, less-utilized, ARM index — the
six-month London Interbank Offered Rate — was 2.24 percent as of Wednesday, according to Bankrate.com. LIBOR was 2.21 percent seven days earlier.
ARM share in the latest Mortgage Market Index report was 19.4 percent, widening from 17.9 percent one week previous.
