3.66: Mortgage Rates Slip on Disappointing Jobs Report

• April 9, 2015

by Lark Turner

Mortgage rates headed south this week after spending two weeks around 3.70 percent, Freddie Mac reported on Thursday. The rate on an average fixed rate 30-year mortgage moved down to 3.66 percent with an average 0.6 point this week. A year ago at this time rates were 4.34 percent.

Len Kiefer, Freddie Mac’s deputy chief economist, said in a news release that poor economic news had caused the rates to fall.

“Mortgage rates fell across the board following last week’s disappointing employment report,” he said. “The U.S. economy added 126,000 new jobs in March, well below market expectations of 247,000 jobs. We did see some uptick in wages, as average hourly earnings increased 7 cents for the month, and are up 2.1 percent over the year. Meanwhile, jobless claims fell sharply to 268,000 this week, much lower than market expectations of 285,000.”

UrbanTurf is following the path of the rates in this chart:

The UrbanTurf Mortgage Rate Disclaimer: The rates reported by Freddie Mac for 30-year mortgages are usually the best rates that the most qualified borrowers can get, so borrowers or those considering refinancing should not necessarily read this news and think that they can go out and get a loan with the quoted interest rate.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/3.66_mortgage_rates_slip_on_disappointing_jobs_report/9745