The average mortgage rate on a 30-year home loan with fixed rates climbed to 5.02% last week from 5%, MBA said. The mortgage rate reached 4.61% at the end of March, the lowest since the group’s records began in 1990. At the current thirty-year mortgage rate, monthly borrowing costs for each $100,000 of a home loan would be $538.04 which is about $12 less than a year ago when the rate was 5.22%.
A report later today may show sales of new homes rose 3% in December to a 366,000 annual rate, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey. Sales of existing U.S. homes plunged last month, reflecting the expected expiration of the government’s first-time buyer tax credit on November 30th.
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The average rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 4.34% from 4.33 % a week earlier. The rate on a one-year adjustable mortgage increased to 6.84% last week. The share of applicants seeking to refinance a loan dropped to 67.6% last week, the lowest level in almost three months, from 71.7% the prior week.
Mortgage lenders continue to see muted demand for financing. “The residential mortgage and home equity line portfolios also continued their downward trend,” SunTrust Banks Inc. Chief Financial Officer Mark Chancy said on a conference call January 22nd. The Atlanta-based lender said it lost $248.1 million in the fourth quarter as loans soured in the Southeast real estate market. The Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association’s loan survey, compiled every week, covers about half of all U.S. retail mortgage loan originations.