Houston Mortgage Rates October 16, 2015

Today’s mortgage rates look flat, as there are no signs of price swings in the bond markets this Friday morning. If this trend continues, we could see mortgage interest rates finishing the day close to Thursday’s levels. Current loan pricing remains close to historical lows, which makes home-buying and refinancing attractive for borrowers. The average lender is quoting the 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the range of 3.75% – 3.875%.

Now, looking at the secondary market, the 10-year treasury yield, which is a bedrock of global finance, increased by 5 basis points to 2.04% during Thursday’s trading. Pricing on mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which tends to move in the same direction as 10-year treasury notes, decreased on Thursday. When pricing on MBS declines, mortgage rates tend to move higher. However yesterday’s net change in mortgage rates wasn’t significant at all, and most of the adjustments can be seen in slightly higher closings closts. As far as the longer-term 30-year treasury bond is concerned, the yield shot up to 2.87% from the previous 2.84% on Wednesday.

Mortgage rates held their ground fairly well on Thursday, despite the fact that government bonds pulled back as investors turned to riskier assets. The decline in the bond market is likely a result of profit-taking or investor portfolio re-positioning. Also, some influential domestic economic data came out on Thursday, which weighed down on bond prices. The good news is that current mortgage rates are in line with those from yesterday.

Mortgage-buyer, Freddie Mac’s latest weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) released on Thursday, showed that fixed mortgage rates headed higher in the week ended October 15. According to the federal agency’s survey, the national average rate on the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rose by 6 basis points to 3.82% this week. The same time a year earlier, the 30-year FRM averaged a rate of 3.97%. With regards to the 15-year fixed mortgage, the average interest rate on this type of loan came out at 3.03%, which marks a 4 basis points increase compared to data from a week earlier. This time a year ago, the average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage averaged 3.18%.

To learn more about what your payments will be, check out a mortgage payment calculator. To find out what interest rate you will qualify for, fill out a loan application.