The Wall Street Journal-20080201-Home-Mortgage Rates Rise in Week
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Home-Mortgage Rates Rise in Week
Full Text (149 words)WASHINGTON - Home-mortgage rates rose for the first time in five weeks, according to a new Freddie Mac survey.
The national average interest rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed- rate loan averaged 5.68% in the week ended yesterday, up from 5.48% a week ago, but down from 6.34% a year ago.
The 15-year fixed-rate loan averaged 5.17%, up from 4.95% a week ago, but down from 6.06% a year ago.
The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 5.32%, compared with 5.13% a week ago and 6.04% a year ago.
"Mortgage rates ended their five-week descent this week, with average rates on 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages coming up by about 0.2 percentage points," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "This increase completely erased the previous week's decline. The movement in fixed mortgage rates was broadly consistent with the movements of Treasury bonds over the week."
