Mortgage Rates - Has The Worm Turned?
Three weeks does not a trend make, but given the roller coaster ride borrowers
have been on all year, it is at least a bit of a direction!
The increases were, as usual, modest. Freddie Mac's survey showed the
30-year up four basis points to 5.66 percent from one week earlier and the 15-year
up 5 basis points to 5.25 percent. Fees and points for the 30-year held constant
at 0.6, and the 15 year declined from 0.7 to 0.6. The 1-year adjustable rate
mortgage increased from 4.33 percent to 4.39 percent while the 5/1 ARM declined
from 5.19 percent to 5.15 percent. Fees and points for those two categories
of ARMs stayed at 0.7.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that all three of the loans it tracks were up and by slightly larger margins than Freddie Mac saw. The 30-year increased to 5.72 percent from 5.62 percent the previous week although points (which in the case of MBA include the origination fee) declined from 1.26 to 1.14. !5-year fixed-rate mortgages increased from 5.21 percent to 5.28 percent and points dropped .02 to 1.26. One-year ARMS increased to 4.63 percent from 4.56 percent and points also dropped .02 to 0.99 from a week earlier.
Mortgage activity increased slightly - 1.2 percent - from the previous week on a seasonally adjusted basis and nearly 27 percent when unadjusted. The previous week was holiday shortened and represented the first decline in activity in many moons which could account for the large unadjusted increase this week. Application activity was 28.6 percent higher than the same week in 2004.
Refinance activity was up to 45.7 percent of total mortgage applications after a bit of a decline last week and the adjustable rate share of mortgages rebounded a bit to 28.5 percent of all mortgage applications from 27.9 percent the previous week.