Mortgage Rates Soar

It seems that the Treasury announcement that it will phase out Fannie and Freddie have had an immediate impact on mortgage rates. They are headed sharply upward. The rate hike is also associated with a fall in consumer demand.

Both Freddie Mac and Bankrate indexes jumped to the highest 30 year fixed rate loan amounts since April 2010. This was up from 4.81 a week ago and up from 4.97 a year ago. Freddie Mac pegged the 30 year fixed rate at 5.05% while Bankrate’s average was 5.23%, up from 5.02% only a week ago. ARM rates have also gone up substantially in the past week.

The Freddie Mac index 15 year fixed rate average was 4.29 while Bankrate’s average was 4.48.