Mortgage rates dropped once again this week, and one expert pointed out that mortgage rates are not following the 10-year Treasury yield.
“For the last 46 years, the 30-year mortgage rate has been almost perfectly correlated with the yield on the 10-year Treasury, but not this year,” Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sean Becketti said.
“From Dec. 29, 2016, through today, the 30-year mortgage rate fell 17 basis points to this week’s reading of 4.15%,” Becketti said. “In contrast, the 10-year Treasury yield began and ended the same period at 2.49%.”
Click to Enlarge
(Source: Freddie Mac)
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage decreased to 4.15% for the week ending February 16, 2017. This is down from last week when it averaged 4.17%, but up from last year’s 3.65%.
The 15-year FRM also decreased to 3.35%, down from 3.39% last year but still up from last year’s 2.95%.
The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage decreased to 3.18% this week, down from last week’s 3.21% but up from last year’s 2.85%.
“While we expect mortgage rates to fall into line with Treasury yields shortly, this just may be a year full of surprises,” Becketti said.
