Mortgage rates rose for the second week,
averaging 3.45 percent for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan, up from 3.42
percent the week before. A year ago, rates averaged 4.04 percent,
according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey.
Despite the uptick, rates have held below 4
percent since December, tying a 29-week run of cheap borrowing we had
from November 2014 to June 2015.
During that sprint, the cost of a 30-year loan averaged 3.77 percent. This time, it’s held to 3.64 percent.
Home loans are cheap by any
standard. That’s good news particularly for young and first-time buyers,
who tend to be more sensitive to cost. Even though they’ve never lived in a high-rate environment, millennial homebuyers still fret about mortgages . Peak millennials — the biggest cohort, born in 1990 — turned 25 last year. They’ve barely witnessed 4 percent rates.
In a Redfin survey,
47 percent of all buyers said they’d look for a less expensive house if
rates rose by a point or more. Among respondents 34 and younger, the
share was more than 50 percent. Five percent of millennials said they’d
give up looking for a house altogether if rates jumped.
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Rates are lower now than they were in May, when the survey was taken. That’s one reason June was one of the most competitive months on record for home sales, according to Redfin data.
Mortgage rates will tick up and down week to week, but they’ll stay low for the foreseeable future.
“We don’t expect any significant movement
in mortgage rates in the near term,” Freddie Mac chief economist Sean
Becketti said. “This summer remains an auspicious time to buy a home or
to refinance an existing mortgage.”
Bobby Darvish of Platinum Lending Solutions
Bobby Darvish of Platinum Lending Solutions
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