Mortgage rates remained largely unchanged from last week after bouncing around from July to August on market uncertainty as to whether the Federal Reserve will taper its bond-buying program.
Mortgage rates for the week ending Aug. 14, changed very little from the previous week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage came in at 4.40%, unchanged from last week, and up from 3.62% last year.
In addition, the 15-year, FRM averaged 3.44%, up from 3.43% last week and also up from 2.88% a year earlier.
The 5-year, Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage came in at 3.23%, a slight jump from 3.19% last week and a substantial increase from 2.76% last year.
The one-year Treasury-indexed ARM reached 2.67%, up from 2.62% a week earlier and not far from the 2.69% rate reported a year earlier.
“Fixed mortgage rates have been bouncing around over the past few weeks on market speculation that the Fed will taper some of its monetary stimulus,” said Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist Frank Nothaft. “In fact, 65 percent of economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the Fed to reduce the amount of bond purchases at its September 17th and 18th monetary policy committee meetings.”
He added, “Currently, mortgage rates on 30-year fixed mortgages are 1.1 percentage points above their all-time low set on November 21, 2012, which translates into $125 more per month in mortgage payments on a $200,000 loan.”
Bankrate also noted that fixed mortgage rates were little changed.
In its weekly national survey, Bankrate reported that the 30-year, FRM rose to 4.57%, while the 15-year, FRM declined to 3.61%. In addition, the 5/1 ARM increased to 3.61%.