With Good Friday on March 29, the market closed for the week on Thursday after a full day trading, leaving mortgage rates just about unchanged from the previous week. The average 30-year fixed mortgage settled in at 3.625 percent, with the only major change being lenders charging higher borrowing fees rather than higher interest rates.
The general trading markets were still highly focused on Cyprus and central bank problems in Europe. However, despite all the media blowup, the actual issues in island country ended up being mediocre. There were no riots, no great meltdown of society, and no contagion. As a result, those expecting Italy and other countries to fall financial this week were disappointed. That in turn was blamed in part for the dampening of mortgage rates, stopping any momentum that may have started an increase at the beginning of the week.
Lenders asked their opinion have generally agreed locking a rate this week might be a very smart idea. If the market continues to flounder without any upward push, rates could actually float even lower. In that case, the borrower could gain an even better loan while still protecting the rate locked in.
The lender optimists keep wanting to describe the loan environment as a “rising rate” market. However, not much has happened to support this theory in reality. The argument is starting to get desperate now, with proponents arguing the latest delays are just retractions for a higher rate position. But each week that goes by with weak performance makes the possibility of a further rate drop a bit more likely instead.
Overall the market remained fairly the same, which was expected. Last week many expected rate averages to continue moving sideways versus higher or lower. While 30-year fixed mortgages saw a 3.75 percent rate on the outliers, the general grouping was closer to 3.625 percent. The 15-year counterpart loan stayed at 3 percent with some lower offerings at 2.875 percent. The five-year adjustable rate mortgage average floated at the same range of 2.625 to 3.25 percent. And the FHA/VA mortgage average continued to be competitive at 3.375 to 3.5 percent.
