Mortgage rates climb again
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October 21, 1999: 1:19 p.m. ET
PPI-driven rates hit highest level in more than two months, Freddie Mac reports
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Mortgage rates rose yet again, hitting their highest levels in more than two months, according to the weekly survey by Freddie Mac released Thursday.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 7.93 percent for the week ending Oct. 22, up from an average of 7.85 last week, and marking the third consecutive increase.
"Results of the Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index spooked the financial markets," Robert Van Order, Freddie Mac's chief economist, said in a release. The PPI shocked the market last Friday when it posted its biggest increase in nine years. The CPI also rose, but Tuesday's increase was as expected.
That has pushed mortgage interest rates up, though Van Order said that they now seem to have leveled off, and that he didn't expect much of a change in the very near future. Housing starts and mortgage applications are down in the face of higher rates.
A 15-year fixed-rate mortgage climbed to 7.53 percent, up from 7.45 percent and well above the 6.34 percent rate of a year ago. This marks the third week in a row rates have gone up.
But the average adjustable-rate mortgage stood almost unchanged. A 1-year adjustable-rate mortgage is now at 6.30 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent last week. They had risen last week and are well up from a year ago.
For a breakdown of the average U.S. mortgage rates by region, click here.
Freddie Mac, otherwise known as the Federal Home Mortgage Corp., buys mortgages from lenders and packages them into securities. Since 1970, it says it has worked on mortgages for one in six U.S. home buyers.
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