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Both Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) recorded increases in interest rates for the weeks ended February 24 and February 25 respectively.
Freddie Mac reported 30-year fixed mortgages at 5.69 percent, up from 5.62 percent the previous week. MBA's pegged the rate at 5.74 percent, up from 5.67.
15-year mortgages increased from 5.14 to 5.22 percent in Freddie's survey and from 5.19 to 5.27 in MBA's.
The 1-year ARM was also up, although only 0.01 according to Freddie (4.16 percent). MBA recorded a steeper climb, from 4.18 to 4.27 percent.
The 5-year ARM, which only Freddie tracks, did not budge from 5.05 percent the previous week although the fees and points associated with this type of mortgage did fall 0.1 to 0.7. All other fees and points remained constant at 0.7 for the two fixed rate categories and 0.8 for the 1-year ARM.
MBA's mortgage origination scale the Market Composite Index?fell 10.8 on an unadjusted basis from the week before and was down nearly 27 percent from the same week in 2004. Refinances as a share of all originations continued to fall, as has been predicted by most economists, now representing 44.8 percent of total mortgage applications, down over 4 percent from the previous week. The ARM share, however, is defying predictions, remaining constant at slightly less than one-third of all new mortgages written.
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