And the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.80 percent this week, down from last week’s 2.86 percent. That, coupled with some evidence of weakness in the US economy – such as the 0.5 percent growth rate in the first quarter – kept mortgage rates on the downswing over the past week. It’s far below its level a year ago of 3.80 per cent.
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As a result, Freddie Mas said that mortgage rates are now hovering just above their low point for the year.
On a $100,000 loan, monthly payments on a 5/1 ARM at 3% would cost about $422 for the initial 5 years.
While fixed-rate mortgages have the advantage of giving home owners certainty over how much their mortgage repayments will be, tracker deals can enable home owners to pay cheap rates of interest at times when the base rate is low, perhaps also giving them opportunities to over-pay their mortgage and cut down the overall size of their loan.
“The Fed’s decision to stand pat followed by a week of assorted unsettling news drove Treasury yields lower”, Becketti said.
After wandering higher for the past two weeks, mortgage rates reversed course, pulling back to near yearly lows.
Mortgage rates fell today.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its report on mortgage applications Wednesday morning, noting a week-over-week decrease of 3.4% in the group’s seasonally adjusted composite index for the week ending April 29. The average interest rate for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage increased from 3.09% to 3.13%. The MCAI decreased 0.89 percent to 122.4 last month.
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The MBA reported that the Refinance Index declined 6 percent from the previous week. “However, this was more than offset by tightening among high balance and jumbo loan programs”. The company offers award-winning editorial content, competitive rate information, and calculators and tools across multiple categories, including mortgages, deposits, credit cards, retirement, automobile loans, and taxes. Within the distressed category, REO sales accounted for 7.8 percent and short sales accounted for 3.3 percent of total home sales in February.
