Mortgage Rates May Be Down... Or Up ?

Both Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) have released the results of their most recent weekly surveys on mortgage rates. Freddie Mac reported that rates dropped for the sixth consecutive week this year and MBA found that most rates were up. The actual rates, however, were nearly identical. This could be a correction by one of the organizations of a statistical anomaly the previous week when their reported rates deviated substantially.

For the week ended February 10, Freddie Mac showed the 30-year fixed rate mortgage down to 5.57 percent from 5.63 percent the previous week, and the 15-year fixed down 0.04 to 5.10 percent. The 5-year ARM dropped 0.01 to 4.99 percent and even the 1-year was down for the first time in 2005 to 4.11 percent from 4.23 for the week ended February 3.

Points and fees for all but the 15-year, which stayed at 0.7, went up 0.1, resulting in a rate of 0.8, the highest in many months, for the 30-year and 1-year. The 5-year was up as well, from 0.6 to 0.7.

MBA’s survey, which has a much larger respondent base, reported 30-year rates at 5.5 percent, up 0.02 and 15-year up 0.03 to 5.09 percent. MBA and Freddie were in agreement that the 1-year dropped substantially; MBA quotes 4.10 percent from 4.24 the previous week.

The MBA survey continues to show strength in the refinancing sector of the market. Refinances represented nearly 50 percent of all mortgage originations last week. The market share of adjustable rate mortgages, however, dropped again to 30.7 percent.