Mortgage Rates Roused After Slipping for Weeks
Mortgage rates roused this week, with the average 30-year, fixed mortgage at a 4.54 percent rate, up from 4.52 percent the prior week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®). The average 15-year, fixed mortgage rate was 4.02 percent, up from 4 percent the prior week, and the five-year, Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable mortgage rate was 3.87 percent, unchanged.
“The next few months will be key for gauging the health of the housing market,” says Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac. “Existing sales appear to have peaked, sales of newly-built homes are slowing and unsold inventory is rising for the first time in three years. Meanwhile, affordability pressures are increasingly a concern in many markets, as the combination of continuous price gains and higher mortgage rates appear to be giving more prospective buyers a pause. This is why new and existing-home sales are not breaking out this summer despite the healthy economy and labor market.”
