I'm Lucas Wysocki with your weekly look at mortgage rates. Despite the Fed's efforts to keep mortgage rates down, the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage inched up 2 basis points to 3.52 percent.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage sat still at 2.85 percent while the average rate for 30-year jumbo mortgages stayed at 3.98 percent.
The 5/1 ARM was 2.74 percent, the same as last week.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve that Quantitative Easing 3 will continue into 2013. Although it is allowing Operation Twist to expire, where short-term securities have been traded in for longer term securities, the Fed will continue to purchase Longer-Term Treasury securities in addition to 40 billion dollars of mortgage-backed securities every month. All of this is in an effort to keep mortgage rates at record low levels. The Fed announced they are aiming to keep interest rates low as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent so expect these low levels well into 2014.
To shop around for one of those record low mortgage rates, just use the free search engine here at Bankrate.com. I'm Lucas Wysocki.