Mortgage rates were up above 7% this past week in the Freddie Mac Weekly Survey and continue at 20 year highs. The 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage was at 7.08% in the Freddie Mac survey results and the 15 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage was at 6.36%. Rates are still very volatile day to day and even intraday.
** Please note that Freddie Mac will change how it collects and reports its rate survey starting next week. It will be interesting to see how these changes affect reported rates, as the current methodology seems recently to be understating actual rates.
The Fed Funds Rate target rate went up by another 0.75% last month and is expected to rise again by the same amount next Wednesday due in part to the high CPI number released last week. Although political pressure on the eve of mid-term elections may be too much for the Fed to withstand and they may raise by less. The Fed was expected last month to start reducing the amount of mortgage and treasury securities on its balance sheet by $95 billion every month, which they refer to as tapering or QT (quantitative tightening.) Just like its weak approach throughout the summer tapering, the Fed is off to a very unimpressive and tepid start to QT. In fact, mortgages held by the Fed were down only $11 billion last month (vs. $35 billion target) and treasury securities have only been reduced by $22 billion last month (vs. $60 billion target.) This month seems closer to the planned tapering, with the Fed removing $20 billion in mortgage securities and $60 billion in treasury securities. (See charts below)
(dynamic charts with current data)
Freddie Mac’s Weekly Survey was released this morning with its most recent assessment of the mortgage rate landscape. See the details of their survey below.
(dynamic chart with current data)
