Mortgage rates barely moved, hovering at or near the record lows set last week.
The Freddie Mac survey showed 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.66% for the week ending Thursday, matching the previous week’s record low. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.51%.
The 15-year FRM, a popular refinancing choice, averaged 2.94% down from last week‘s average of 2.95%. A year ago, the average rate for a 15-year FRM was 3.69%.
Five-year, Treasury-indexed, hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 2.79%, rising from 2.77% last week and falling from 3.22% a year earlier.
And one-year, Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 2.74%, the same as last week and down from 2.97% last year.
Freddie Mac Chief Economist Frank Nothaft said the virtually unchanged rates should help to support a recovering housing market.
Both the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s house price indexes showed more than a 0.5% monthly increase in April. And pending existing home sales rebounded in May by 5.9% to match a two-year high and new home sales jumped 7.6% to its fastest pace since April 2010.
Home loan analytics firm Bankrate, which surveys large banks, reported the 30-year FRM fell to 3.89% from 3.92%, while the 15-year FRM dropped to 3.16% from 3.20%. The 5/1 ARM ticked down to 3.02% from 3.03%.
