WASHINGTON – Rates for 30-year home loans edged up this week, remaining above record lows reached over the spring.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 5.42 percent, up from 5.38 percent a week earlier, mortgage company Freddie Mac said Thursday.
“Mixed economic reports on the state of the housing market helped hold mortgage rates fairly flat,” Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in a statement.
Rates on 30-year mortgages fell to a record low of 4.78 percent earlier this year. But then they rose as high as 5.6 percent earlier this month after yields on long-term government debt, which are closely tied to mortgage rates, climbed as investors worried that the huge surplus of government debt hitting the market could trigger inflation.
Since then, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has fallen back from an eight-month high of 4.01 percent reached last week to 3.61 percent early Thursday afternoon.
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