Here is a great article about the Mortgage Situation written in The Seattle Times a few months ago, for those that missed it!
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/mortgage-rates-hit-high-for-2015/
The average interest rate for a conventional 30-year mortgage rose to 4.08 percent this week, its high point for the year.
Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of lenders started the year at 3.87
percent and sank to 3.59 percent in early February. This week’s report,
released Thursday, showed the 30-year fixed-rate loan at or above 4
percent for the fourth survey in a row, and up from 4.02 percent last
week.
Lenders
offered 15-year fixed-rate loans to solid borrowers at an average of
3.24 percent, up from 3.21 percent a week ago, Freddie Mac said. The
starting rates for adjustable loans also rose.
The slowly rising rates come as the Federal Reserve,
having ended a bond-buying program designed to keep long-term interest
rates low, is now pondering when to start raising short-term rates.
That
increase would not only directly affect consumer rates tied to the
prime rate, such as many home-equity credit lines and adjustable-rate
mortgages, but also increase pressure on long-term rates like those on
30-year home loans.
A lobbying group for the mortgage industry reported that home-loan
applications fell 4.7 percent last week as the cost of borrowing rose,
Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Sean Becketti, noted as the rate report
was released.
“Other measures, however, confirmed continued strength in housing,”
Becketti said. “Pending home sales rose 0.9 percent, exceeding
expectations, and the Case-Shiller house price index recorded another
solid increase.”
Freddie Mac asks lenders each Monday through Wednesday about the
terms they are offering to solid borrowers seeking mortgages of up to
$417,000.
The loans must conform to guidelines set by Freddie Mac and Fannie
Mae, the nation’s other major buyer and guarantor of home loans.
The borrowers would have paid an average of 0.6 percent of the loan
balance in upfront lender fees and discount points to obtain the 30-year
fixed-rate loan in the latest survey.
The costs of such services as appraisals and title insurance are not included.