Florida Mortgage Rates Higher For Week

Average interest rates on U.S. 30- and 15-year Florida mortgages rose this week, according to a weekly survey released by Freddie Mac Thursday.
The industry’s most common and benchmark Florida home loan product, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, averaged 6.21 percent, up from 6.15 percent last week.

Meanwhile, 15-year mortgages, a popular Florida refinance option, inched up to 5.92 percent from 5.87 percent.

One-year adjustable rate mortgages were unchanged in the week at 5.48 percent, according to the survey.

A year ago, 30-year Florida home loans averaged 6.60 percent, 15-year mortgages 6.20 percent and the one-year ARM 5.62 percent.

“[Florida home mortgage] rates inched up this week following the Federal Open Market Committee statement reiterating that the predominant concern remains the risk that inflation will fail to moderate as expected,” Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac V.P. and chief economist, said.

The expert reiterated his belief that mortgage rates will not rise or fall greatly throughout the rest of 2007.

“However, as long as core inflation continues to trend down and economic growth remains sub-par it is unlikely that we will see any major movement in [Florida mortgage] rates,” Nothaft said.

On Wednesday, the Commerce Department said U.S. April housing starts rose 2.5 percent to an annual rate of 1.528 million units.

Building permits fell 8.9 percent in April to a 1.429 million unit rate, the lowest since 1.402 million units in June 1997.

Freddie Mac said that a Florida mortgage lender charged an average of 0.4 percent in fees and points on 30- and 15-year mortgages, both figures are down from 0.5 percent last week.

Fees on the one-year ARM averaged 0.7 percent, unchanged from a week ago.

The “5/1″ ARM, set at a fixed rate for five years and adjustable each year after that, averaged 5.92 percent, up from 5.89 percent last week.

Fees and points charged on the hybrid Florida mortgage averaged 0.5 percent, down from 0.6 percent a week earlier.

Freddie Mac is a mortgage finance company chartered by Congress that will buy mortgages from lenders and packages them into securities to sell to investors or to hold in its own portfolio.

SOURCE: Reuters