MORTGAGES RATES HIT 3 MONTHS HIGH

Mortgage rates rose this week to their highest levels since the week before Halloween.


The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 10 basis points, to 6.42 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.34 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 6.28 percent; four weeks ago, it was 6.24 percent.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 12 basis points, to 6.19 percent. The 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage rose 9 basis points, to 6.3 percent.
Mortgage rates tend to rise when the economic outlook is good, and the week bore some pretty good news. The highlight was the report of the gross domestic product for the final three months of 2006. The report estimated that total economic output rose at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the final quarter. That was better than expected, and much stronger than GDP growth in the third quarter (an annual rate of 2 percent).