30-Year Mortgage Rate Jumps Past 8%

The average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage soared to 8.15% this week, its highest since April 1997, mortgage company Freddie Mac reported. That’s up from 7.89% last week. So far this year, the average for a 30-year mortgage hit a low of 6.74% at the end of January and a previous ’99 record high of 7.89% last week. The rate for a 15-year mortgage averaged 7.7% this week, up from 7.45% last week. On one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 6.24% this week, up from 6.09% the previous week. Robert Van Order, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said, “The stronger-than-expected employment report rattled markets a little last week, continuing to raise fears” that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for a second time this year. “An economic climate like that generally results in higher interest rates, and that is what we saw in this week’s results,” he said of the mortgage rate survey. Last week, the government reported that businesses added 310,000 new jobs and increased wages by a larger-than-expected amount in July.