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Last week's mortgage application volume was up 5.1 percent from the week before, boosted by refinance loan applications, per the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Refinance loan applications were up 6 percent week-over-week, but down 31 percent year-over-year, as interest rates have gone up in that time. "It was a mixed week for rates in MBA's survey. Treasury yields finished the week slightly higher as a hawkish statement from the Federal Open Market Committee and market jitters caused by trade concerns and other geopolitical uncertainty offset each other," Joel Kan, MBA economist, tells CNBC. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with loan balances $453,100 or less were flat at 4.83 percent.
Home prices will continue to rise as long as supplies are so tight. A monthly read of housing starts did show a sizable gain in single-family home construction in May, but builders are still producing far fewer homes than are needed, and what they are producing is mostly in the move-up or luxury market. The low end is the leanest. Mortgage rates have not moved much this week but could fall if increasing tensions in the brewing trade war between the U.S. and China push investors to the safe haven of bonds. Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury.
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