Mortgage Rate Climbing

Mortgage rates climbed for a fifth straight week. Indications of a stronger economy, a healthy labor market and a good level of consumer confidence are all contributing to this uphill route of mortgage rates.

According to Freddie Mac's weekly report, the benchmark 30-year fixed loan averaged 6.58% this week ended today, up from last week's average rate of 6.53% and 0.8 percentage point above its level one year ago. The 15-year mortgage averaged 6.21% in the week, up from last week's average of 6.17%. One year back the 15-year rate averaged at 5.33%. Both these rates are now touching the rates they had about 4 years back.

The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) averaged 6.21%, up from last week when they averaged 6.16 %. A year ago, this rate averaged at 5.2%. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 5.68%, up from 5.63%. At this time last year, the one-year ARM had an average rate of only 4.21%.