Freddie Mac and MBA Mortgage Rates Survey Directionless

Mortgage rates were mixed for the week ending September 7 and September 8, with no definitive movement in either direction. After three weeks of declines, both Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) surveys saw rates up, down, and unchanged.

According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed mortgage was static since the previous week, remaining at 5.71 with fees and points also unchanged at 0.6.

The 15-year fixed declined slightly to 5.30 percent from 5.32 percent the week of August 31 and the 5/1 adjustable dropped almost in perceptively from 5.3 percent to 5.24 percent. Fees and points for the 15-year rose to 0.6 from 0.5 but was unchanged for the hybrid 5/1 at 0.6. The 1-year ARM showed the most activity in the Freddie Mac report, moving downward three whole basis points from 4.48 percent to 4.45 percent with fees and points unchanged. Freddie Mac’s results represented the lowest rates since the week of July 14.

The MBA survey was a little livelier, reporting increases in all three types of mortgage products its survey tracks. The 30-year fixed was up 8 basis points from the previous week to 5.72 percent with fees (including any origination fees) increasing from 1.13 to 1.18. The 15-year increased from 5.18 percent to 5.29 percent and fees took a healthy jump from 1.14 to 1.31. The 1-year ARM moved only slightly from 4.81 percent to 4.82 and fees from 1.04 to 1.05.

MBA reported that mortgage applications (in a holiday shortened week) were down 1.4 percent on an adjusted basis and 12.3 percent unadjusted. Volume, however, continues to run well ahead of 2004 rates, up 26.5 percent from the same week in 2004.

Refinancing is more or less holding its own in the mortgage application world, dropping slightly from 44.8 percent for the week of August 31 to 42.9 percent last week while the share of adjustable rate mortgages increased from 26.5 percent to 28.2 percent.