Mortgage Rate Up Again

The mortgage rate moved up again this week. Also, ahead of next week's Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note ran up to 5.2% in the final hour of trading today. The central bank is expected to hike the overnight lending interest rate to 5.25% at the meeting.

According to Freddie Mac's weekly survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.71% in the week that ended today -- higher than its 6.63% average last week. At this time last year, the loan averaged 5.57%. The 30-year mortgage has not been higher since the week ending May 31, 2002, when it averaged 6.76%. The 15-year fixed rate averaged at 6.36% this week, up from last week's 6.25%. At this time last year this rate was 5.16%.

Rate for 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) also went up this week to 6.32% from 6.23% last week. This rate averaged 5.05% a year ago. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs also moved up this week to 5.75%, from 5.66% last week. At this time in 2005, the ARM averaged 4.23%.

Despite recent rate fluctuations and an underlying upper trend, Freddie Mac still predicts 2006 will be the 3rd strongest year on record for the housing sector.