Estate and mortgageMortgage Rates Tick Up Slightly As Housing Continues to Show Weakness
The 15-year FRM this week averaged 5.79 percent with an average 0.4 point, up from last week when it averaged 5.78 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 5.89 percent.
Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) averaged 5.90 percent this week, with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 5.89 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 5.96 percent.
One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 5.51 percent this week with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it was 5.50 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 5.44 percent.
"Stronger-than-expected inflation reports and retail sales for November put upward pressure on long-term interest rates late last week," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "However, ensuing data releases suggested further weakness in the housing market over November and December and allowed interest rates to drift back down. The net effect left mortgage rates little changed this week."
"Both the producer and consumer price indexes jumped for the month of November, implying inflation may still be a threat to the economy while retail sales increased twice as much as market forecasts, reflecting healthy consumer spending. At roughly the same time, single-family housing starts fell 5.4 percent in November to 829,000, the slowest pace since April 1991, and homebuilder confidence in December held for the third consecutive month at the lowest level since records began in January 1985."