Interest rates for home loans climbed higher this week, just as the ""European Central Bank"":http://www.ecb.int/home/html/index.en.html intervened to shore up the struggling economy overseas with more euro bonds and a weak jobs report quieted investors abroad.
[IMAGE]Real estate website ""Zillow"":http://www.zillow.com/ reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage ticked up to 3.38 percent, up two basis points from 3.36 last week. The benchmark home loan had fallen and hovered somewhere between 3.36 percent and 3.41 percent over the weekend.
Interest rates for the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage went up to 2.75 percent, while those for 5-year and 1-year adjustable-rate mortgages hover around 2.41 percent, respectively.
Mortgage rates bumped up in Florida and New York, increasing by 9 basis points and 5 basis points, respectively.
[COLUMN_BREAK]Interest rates for the 30-year loan fell or ticked up only slightly across much of the rest of the nation.
""Mortgage rates spiked late last week after the European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to purchase European bonds to contain the eurozone debt crisis,"" ""Erin Lantz"":http://www.zillow.com/blog/tag/erin-lantz/, director of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, said in a statement, referring to the buy-up that ""_The New York Times_"":http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/bets-on-european-bonds-paying-off-for-funds/ reports may pay off for the financial institution.
She also said that ""the spike was short-lived and rates ended the week up only slightly as a weak U.S. jobs report offset enthusiasm for the ECB rescue plan."" The Census Bureau beat back increasingly high expectations for jobs reports by revealing that the U.S. economy gained only 96,000 last week.
Lantz said that Zillow expects rates to hover near current levels ""as the market awaits direction from the Federal Reserve coming out of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting this Wednesday and Thursday.
""Although there is no clear consensus about what the Federal Reserve will decide, many expect the Federal Reserve will announce new stimulus plans or at least extend forward guidance to assure markets that the Federal Reserve won't increase the federal funds rate until 2015 or beyond,"" she added.
""Assuming the Federal Reserve meets these expectations, we expect rates to remain fairly steady since the market has already priced in expectations for further Federal Reserve assurances,"" she said.