US Mortgage Rates Rising In Anticipation Of Fed Hike

(RTTNews) - Mortgage rates again rose this week amid growing expectations of a possible interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve in December as well as on a strong job market report for October.

Releasing the results of its primary mortgage market survey, Freddie Mac said Thursday that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage or FRM averaged 3.98 percent for the week ended November 12, up from 3.87 percent last week. A year ago at this time, the average rate was 4.01 percent.

Sean Becketti, chief economist at Freddie Mac, said, "A surprisingly strong October jobs report showed 271,000 jobs added and wage growth of 0.4 percent from last month, exceeding many experts' expectations. The positive employment reports pushed Treasury yields to about 2.3 percent as investors responded by placing a higher likelihood on a December rate hike."

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.20 percent this week, up from 3.09 percent in the prior week. A year ago at this time, the rate for the 15-year loans averaged 3.20 percent.

The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage or ARM averaged 3.03 percent, up from 2.96 percent last week. It was 3.02 percent a year ago.

The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 2.65 percent this week, up from 2.62 percent a week earlier. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 2.43 percent.