Mortgage Rates Change Slightly, Freddie Mac Says
September 23 2021 - 10:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Dave Sebastian
Mortgage rates showed little change in the past week, according
to Freddie Mac's latest survey.
For the week ended Thursday, the rate on a 30-day fixed rate
mortgage averaged 2.88%, up slightly from 2.86% last week and lower
than the 2.9% rate it averaged a year earlier.
Homebuyers continue to snap up available inventory, which has
slightly improved, and home-price growth is moderating, said Sam
Khater, Freddie Mac's chief economist. But the next few months will
be choppy, as some homebuilders are signaling that they are going
to deliver less supply amid shortages of labor and materials, he
added.
Meanwhile, the slowdown in economic growth around the world has
led to "a flight to the quality of the U.S. financial markets," Mr.
Khater said. "This has led to a rise in foreign investor purchases
of U.S. Treasuries, causing mortgage rates to remain in place,
despite the increasing dispersion of inflation across different
consumer goods and services," he said.
Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 2.15%, up from
2.12% in the previous week. Rates averaged 2.4% a year earlier,
according to Freddie Mac.
Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages, or
ARMs, on average stood at 2.43%, down from 2.51% last week and
lower than the 2.9% rate a year earlier.
Mortgage rates tend to move in the same direction as the yield
on the 10-year Treasury. Treasury yields rise when investors feel
confident enough in the economy to forgo safe-haven assets such as
bonds for riskier ones including stocks.
Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 23, 2021 10:14 ET (14:14 GMT)
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