Weekly mortgage rates up from yearly low

Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages backed off from yearly lows this week, but still remain historically cheap.

Mortgage finance company Freddie Mac says the average rate rose to 4.75 percent, up from 4.72 percent last week. The rate hit 4.71 percent in December, the lowest since Freddie Mac began keeping records in 1971. The average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage edged up to 4.2 percent, up from its all-time low of 4.17 percent set last week.

Mortgage rates have fallen over the past two months. Investors have shifted money into the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds because of concerns over the European debt crisis and the volatile stock market. Mortgage rates tend to follow the yield on U.S. Treasury debt.

On Wednesday, the federal regulator overseeing Freddie Mac and other mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae ordered the companies to delist their shares from the New York Stock Exchange.

Associated Press