Mortgage rates increased this week, with the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage rising to 3.56%, up from 3.49% last week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
Still, rates are well below where they were a year ago, when the average rate for a 30-year was 4.6%.
“Pipeline purchase demand continues to improve heading into the late fall with purchase mortgage applications up nine percent from a year ago,” says Sam Khater, chief economist for Freddie Mac, in a statement. “The improved demand reflects the still healthy underlying consumer economic fundamentals such as a low unemployment rate, solid wage growth and low mortgage rates.
“While there has been a material weakness in manufacturing and consistent trade uncertainty, so far, the American consumer has proved to be resilient with solid home purchase demand,” Khater adds.
For the week ended Sept. 12, the average rate for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was 3.09%, up from 3.0% the previous week.
A year ago at this time, the average rate for a 15-year was 4.06%.
The average rate for a five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage was 3.36% up from 3.3%.
A year ago, the average rate for a five-year ARM was 3.93%.