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Mortgage Rates Rise for Third Straight Week, Still Down from December

Mortgage rates are up for the third straight week of February, according to a report released by Freddie Mac on Thursday. However, fixed mortgage rates still remain near late May 2013 lows and numbers released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency on Thursday show mortgage rates on a month-to-month basis are down in January.

According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year FRM rate increased to 3.8 percent from last week’s rate of 3.76 percent.  A year ago at this time, Freddie Mac's 30-year FRM averaged 4.37 percent. However, according to the FHFA, the FRM rate on loans of $417,000 or less was 4.06 percent, a decrease from 4.19 in December.

"Mortgage rates rose for the third consecutive week in February following solid housing data. New home sales beat market expectations at an annual pace of 481,000 units, down slightly from 482,000 units in December, but up 5.3 percent from a year ago. Also, the S&P/Case-Shiller National House Price Index rose 4.6 percent over the 12-months ending in December 2014," said Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac.

The 15-year FRM averaged around 3.07 percent this week up 0.6 point from last week. The 5-year Treasury-index hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 2.99 percent and the 1-year Treasury-index ARM was 0.4 percent down from last week, averaging at 2.44 percent. All three rates are lower than last year.

As for the month-to-month analysis, the average interest rate for all mortgages has decreased from 4.0 percent in December to 3.89 percent in January, according to FHFA. The effective interest rate for on all mortgage loans was 4.04 percent in January, down 11 points from December.  The National Average Contract Mortgage Rate for the Purchase of Previously Occupied Homes by Combined Lenders index was 3.88 percent for loans closed in late January, down 10 basis points from 3.98 percent in December.

The average loan amount was down $7,000 in January, reaching $239,300 from $298,300 in December.

About Author: Samantha Guzman

Samantha Guzman is an award-winning visual journalist and graduate of the University of North Texas Mayborn School of Journalism. She specializes in visual storytelling and has skills in video, audio and photography, in addition to news writing. She has traveled to Mexico and Bosnia as an assistant for multiple multimedia projects and taught news writing, photojournalism, and narrative storytelling in the past.
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