Mortgage rates in the U.S. inched down a little this week on "light economic reports", according to Freddie Mac, the government-backed lending giant's weekly interest rates survey.
The survey revealed that the average 30-year-fixed mortgage rates slightly declined to 4.13 percent this week from the 4.15 percent last week. Last year during this time, the rate was 4.37 percent.
The average 15-year-fixed mortgage rates went down 0.05 percentage points to 3.23 percent from last week's 3.24 percent. It averaged 3.41 percent at the same time, last year.
The five-year adjustable mortgage rate averaged 2.97 percent, lower than 2.99 percent last week. The rate was 3.17 percent a year ago. The average one-year treasury-indexed adjustable mortgage rate also fell 0.4 points to 2.39 percent, down from last week's 2.40 percent.
"Mortgage rates were little changed amid a week of light economic reports. Of the few releases, industrial production rose by 0.2 percent in June, below the market consensus forecast. Also, the producer price index for final demand rose 0.4 percent in June, rebounding from a 0.2 percent decline the prior month," Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist at Freddie Mac, explained in a statement.
Rates went down slightly after it rose last week, but nevertheless have remained at record lows. But, how long will the rates remain this cheap?
Earlier this week, Fed head Janet Yellen said that they would increase the rates if the labor market continues to post a strong growth.
"If the labor market continues to improve more quickly than anticipated by the [Fed] then increases in the federal-funds rate target likely would occur sooner and be more rapid than currently envisioned," Yellen told the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday.
Experts said that it is the right time to raise rates because if they waited too long, it could prove harmful to the economy. The feds said that they will start hiking short term interest rates by mid-2015 but if need be, they could start increasing the price much earlier than the declared deadline, according to USA Today.
