The short holiday week brought a flurry of economic reports last week. Highlights included pending home sales, the S&P Case-Shiller Housing Market Indices and the FHFA home price index. No reports were released on Thursday and Friday in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Last weekâs scheduled economic news was varied, but mortgage rates fell and jobless claims were significantly lower than expected. The minutes for last monthâs FOMC meeting were released, and confirmed the Federal Reserveâs intention to leave its quantitative easing program unchanged at least for the near term.
The Veterans Day holiday on Monday contributed to a quiet week for economic news. On Wednesday the reading for the federal budget deficit for October fell from September’s reading of -$120 billion to -$92 billion.
Looking ahead, economic news for this week includes the Existing Home Sales report for April with an expectation of 5.00 million homes sold on a seasonally-adjusted annual basis against the March tally of 4.93 million homes sold.
Also set for release on Wednesday are the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Minutes for the meeting held April 30 and May 1.
Mortgage rates rose last week with average rates a 30-year fixed rate mortgage rising from last week’s 3.35 percent to 3.42 percent with buyers paying all closing costs and 0.7 percent in discount points.
Mortgage rates fell last week and approached or reached record low levels. According to Freddie Mac, the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage (FRM) fell from 3.40 percent to 3.35 percent. Average rates for a 15-year FRM moved from 2.61percent to 2.56 percent.
Mortgage rates fell again last week and are again near record lows.
According to Freddie Mac, the average rate for a 15-year fixed rate mortgage did achieve a record low of 2.61 percent as compared to 3.1 percent one year ago.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell to 3.40 percent and near the record low of 3.31 percent.
Mortgage rates fell for the third consecutive week. According to Freddie Mac, the average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell by two basis points to 3.41 percent as compared to last week’s 3.43 percent and 3.90 percent year-over-year.
Mortgage rates saw little change last week amidst mixed economic news.
Treasury auctions held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday saw weak demand; this could have been caused by the FOMC minutes that were released on Wednesday.
Last week’s economic news includes several factors that drove U.S. mortgage rates lower.
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