The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage remained unchanged at historically lows for the week ending Feb. 9, while other rates edged higher on improved employment data, Freddie Mac said.
The government-sponsored enterprise released its primary mortgage market survey, which shows the rate for a traditional mortgage unchanged from the previous week’s rate of 3.87%. That same rate came in at 5.05% last year.
While the 30-year, FRM remained unchanged, the 15-year, FRM inched higher to 3.16% compared to 3.14% a week earlier and 4.29% last year.
In addition, the 5-year, Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 2.83%, up from 2.8% a week ago and 3.92% from a year earlier.
The one-year, Treasury-indexed ARM also averaged 2.78%, up from 2.76% a week ago and 3.35% last year.
“A strong January employment report added upward pressure to most mortgage rates this week,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist for Freddie Mac.
“The economy gained 243,000 jobs last month, the largest monthly gain since April 2011, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%, which was the lowest since February 2009,” Nothaft said. “Although historical revisions also added 266,000 even more workers, they caused the labor participation rate to fall to 63.7%, representing the smallest share since May 1983, which offset some of the rise in mortgage rates.”
Bankrate also reported interest rates edge higher this week, with the 30-year, FRM up to 4.14% from 4.12% a week earlier. In addition, the 15-year, FRM rose from 3.34% to 3.36% and the 1 ARM grew from 3.02% to 3.05%.
