Mortgage rates held their ground last week, which should bode well for the housing market in the coming months.
The latest numbers from Freddie Mac put 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages at 4.45 percent for the week ended Jan. 24, unchanged from the previous week and up from 4.15 percent at the same time in 2018. Fifteen-year, fixed-rate mortgages also held steady from the week prior at 3.88 percent.
In a statement accompanying the report, Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater said that although home sales have recently declined, America’s strong economy and high demand for mortgages so far in 2019 should help reverse that trend. In a recent report, National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun blamed higher mortgage rates at the end of 2018 on December U.S. home sales activity, which declined by 6.4 percent month over month and 10.3 percent from one year earlier.
