Anyone notice this?>Mortgage rates rise for second consecutive week
January 29, 1998
Mortgage interest rates rose sharply this week
to the highest level in seven weeks.
The average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 7.12
percent this week from 6.99 percent last week, Freddie Mac, the
mortgage company, said Thursday. It was the largest weekly rise in
nine months.
Just two weeks ago, the rate hit a four-year low of 6.89 percent.
Increases since then have been attributed to financial market
skittishness over rising wages and uncertainty about President
Clinton's political strength since the onset of the Monica Lewinsky
controversy.
Mortgage rates had been declining since April 1997, when the
30-year average hit 8.18 percent just after the Federal Reserve last
tightened monetary policy. The decline spurred a wave of mortgage
refinancings.
Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, averaged
6.70 percent this week, up from 6.56 percent last week.
On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an
average initial rate of 5.59 percent, up from 5.53 percent and the
highest since early September.
The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. |
