Home shoppers are being greeted with much lower mortgage rates to kick off 2020 than they were a year ago. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.72% this week, compared to 4.51% at the beginning of 2019.
Improving economic data has led to a stability in mortgage rates over the last few weeks. Thirty-year rates have generally hovered around an average of 3.7% for the past two months.
“The stability is welcome news after the interest rate turbulence of the last year, which caused a slowdown in the housing market and other interest rate-sensitive sectors,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “The low mortgage rate environment combined with the red-hot labor market is setting the stage for a continued rise in home sales and home prices.”