The average long-term mortgage rates in the United States have reached another low in its fifth consecutive week, the lowest since late April, which experts attributed to the volatility of the financial market and increasing competition for the debt, The Lake Andes Wave has reported.
Data from Freddie Mac as of Feb. 4, 2016 showed that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is now at 3.72 percent, down from 3.79 percent of the previous week. Average rate of the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage is at 3.01 percent, down from 3.07 percent. Meanwhile, from 2.90 percent in the week of Jan. 28, five/one-year fixed-mortgage rate decreased to 2.85 percent.
"We're starting to get closer to the spring homebuying season, and we're starting from a place of lower interest rates than we would have expected," Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com, a Riverdale, New Jersey-based mortgage-data company, told Bloomberg.
As investors play safe with the U.S. government bonds given the turbulent global market, they accept lower yields, hence, lower borrowing costs. Bloomberg said this may come as good news as the new key home buying season begins in the country.
In another mortgage news, one of Europe's biggest banks, HSBC, has reached a $450 million settlement with the federal government and states over allegations of mortgage lending and foreclosure misconduct. The company has been fined $100 million and has been required to pay $370 million in consumer relief to borrowers in 49 states, as well as the U.S. government and the District of Columbia. The probe began in 2010 and HSBC was accused of approving foreclosure documents even without proper review.
Elsewhere, consumer advocates are worried that the increasing number of a new set of non-bank mortgage lenders might take advantage of borrowers once again. Some of them belong to the largest lenders in the nation and have connections to subprime mortgage firms which contributed to the financial crisis in 2008.
