Report: Positive employment figures lead to better mortgage rates

According to Freddie Mac's recent Primary Mortgage Market Survey, mortgage rates increased slightly for the third consecutive week. The 30-year-fixed rates jumped 0.7 percent to reach 4.87 percent, which is optimistic, but still below last year's 5.21 percent average.

The 15-year rates also improved by 0.7 percent, settling at 4.10 percent, which is also below last year's average of 4.52 percent.

"Mortgage rates were little changed after an encouraging employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics," said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist at Freddie Mac. "The economy added 216,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell for the fifth consecutive month to 8.8 percent marking the lowest rate in two years. Additionally, the private sector has gained 560,000 workers in the first quarter of this year, which represents the largest quarterly increase since the first quarter of 2006."

The report's results coincide with recent data that showed improvement for employment rates.

The new report comes as good news after the housing market suffered a setback at the beginning of the year, as sales of new and existing homes had dropped. 

Courtesy of 2M Realty News