4.33: For Second Week, Mortgage Rates Inch Up

• February 20th 2014

by Lark Turner

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Mortgage rates ticked up slightly this week, with Freddie Mac reporting 4.33 percent with an average 0.7 point on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. That’s up from 4.28 percent last week, when rates also rose a bit.

A year ago, long-term rates averaged 3.56 percent.

Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, said in a news release that the uptick could be due to the release of Federal Reserve meeting minutes in the past week, which led to an upward tick in 10-year Treasury yield rates and “indicated little possibility of a pause in the central bank’s reduction of bond purchases.” He continued:

“Housing starts in January fell 16 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 888,000 units, below consensus forecast. Permits were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 937,000 in January, also below consensus.”

We’re tracking mortgage rates over time in this handy chart:

The UrbanTurf Mortgage Rate Disclaimer: The rates reported by Freddie Mac for 30-year mortgages are usually the best rates that the most qualified borrowers can get, so borrowers or those considering refinancing should not necessarily read this news and think that they can go out and get a loan with the quoted interest rate.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/4.33_for_second_week_mortgage_rates_inch_up/8149.