Mortgage Rates Rise For Second Straight Week

Freddie Mac has released is weekly report on average mortgage interest rates for the last full week of 2004. The three types of mortgages tracked by the report all showed a slight increase for the second week in a row.

Freddie Mac quoted 30 year fixed rates at 5.81 percent, up from 5.75 the previous week. Fifteen year fixed rates rose from 5.18 to 5.23 and one-year adjustable rate mortgages averaged 4.19, up .02 percent from the previous week. Fees and points for all three mortgage types were unchanged at 0.6.

In spite of a slight tightening of credit by the Federal Reserve Board over the last few months, rates are continuing the see-saw pattern of the last year. The increases reported for December 22 and December 29 follow two weeks of declines in early December. The net result? Rates on all three types of mortgages are now exactly where they were for the week ended December 2.