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Mortgage rates up again
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December 22, 1999: 5:32 p.m. ET
Despite Fed’s decision this week to stay steady, market fears future hike
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Mortgage rates rose again despite the Federal Reserve’s decision not to raise interest rates earlier this week, according to a survey by released Wednesday by loan reseller Freddie Mac.
A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.96 percent, up from 7.86 percent last week. That’s well above last year’s rate, when the same mortgage averaged 6.77 percent.
The average 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was also up a tenth of a percentage point, to 7.57 percent. That mortgage averaged a 6.41 percent rate 12 months ago.
A one-year adjustable-rate mortgage rose even more, hitting 6.64 percent this week compared to 6.49 percent last week and 5.58 percent a year ago.
Washington, D.C.-based Freddie Mac, officially called the Federal Home Mortgage Corp., packages mortgages and resells them in the secondary market as mortgage-backed securities. It released its mortgage-rates survey earlier than usual this week because of the holiday season. Still, its numbers measure the average rate on a U.S. mortgage for the week ending Dec. 24.
(Click here to see a breakdown of the average mortgage rates by U.S. region).
"Continued signs of strength in the economy did nothing to ease fears of inflation, causing interest rates to continue their incremental climb,” Robert Van Order, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in a prepared statement.
"The Federal Reserve, however, did soothe the financial markets’ nerves somewhat by not raising rates [on Tuesday], but the market still feels the Fed will take some action early in the new year,” he said. 
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