Fixed-rate mortgages still averaging well below 5%
Interest rates on home mortgages edged higher this week, bouncing off record lows, but fixed-rate loans are still averaging well below 5% for those who are coming out of the recession with solid credit and can muster 20% down.
Those lucky borrowers were getting 30-year fixed loans at an average of 4.81% for the week ending Thursday, according to Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage buyer and guarantor. On those loans, the borrowers were paying 0.7% of the loan amount in upfront lender fees including so-called points.
Fixed rates on 15-year loans averaged 4.32% with upfront fees averaging 0.6%.
In the preceding week, 30-year fixed rates averaged 4.71%, an all-time low for the Freddie Mac survey. A year earlier, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.47%.
Freddie Mac economist Frank Nothaft said an upbeat report on November unemployment had pushed long-term Treasury yields higher and mortgage rates followed, as they generally do.
With 30-year fixed rates almost 0.7 of a percentage point lower than at the same time last year, Nothaft noted, someone signing up for a $400,000 conventional mortgage would pay $162 less per month now compared with then.
