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Mortgage Rates Reach Their Highest Level This Year: Freddie Mac
By Leslie Cook MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
According to Freddie Mac’s benchmark survey, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has increased to 6.81%.
Mortgage rates increased again this week.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was up by 0.10 percentage points for the week ending July 6, according to Freddie Mac. The 30-year rate is now averaging 6.81% — the highest it’s reached this year.
Borrowers considering a 15-year fixed-rate loan also found higher rates this week. That loan type is now averaging 6.24%; an increase of 0.18 percentage points from last week.
Mortgage rates continue to climb
Housing experts and observers got a peek into where interest rates are heading yesterday when the Federal Reserve’s June meeting minutes were released.
The central bank says more rate hikes are needed to help bring inflation down to the target range of 2%. Inflation, while slowing, is not cooling as fast as the Fed anticipated, and will require more tightening in the bank’s monetary policy than previously thought.
Analysts expect the Fed to increase the federal fund rate, or the short-term interest rate banks charge each other on loans, by 0.25 percentage points at its July meeting.
“While this may put near-term upward pressure on interest rates, including mortgage rates, we anticipate a gradual decrease that could bring rates close to 6% by the end of the year,” said Jiayi Xu, an economist at Realtor.com.
The Fed will synthesize a new data set this Friday when the June jobs and payroll report is released. The results of that data will help determine how much more tightening needs to be done.
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Leslie Cook is the Lead Mortgage Reporter covering mortgages and the housing market for Money. She has been a guest on the This Morning with Gordon Deal radio show and served as moderator for ServiceLink's State of Homebuying webinar. Her career started as a business reporter over 30 years ago, covering the computer and human resources beats for Caribbean Business newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She graduated Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania with a bacheloru2019s degree in history.