Mortgage rate rises, but is this a trend?

The weeks-long downward slide of rates on 30-year mortgages stopped this week, mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday.

The fixed rate averaged 4.35 percent this week, up a nano inch from 4.32 last week, which had been the lowest since finance giant Freddie Mac began tracking this rate in 1971.

The slip could just be a temporary blip. As mortgage industry veterans say, bad news drives rates down, and unemployment rates, the housing crisis, the credit markets and national debt have been sitting on rates.

“You get bad news from Europe, it’ll go back down,” said Al Dunseath, president of Glen Mortgage Corp., a Glen Cove mortgage broker.

He considers this week’s rate increase negligible and said people hoping for lower rates later should not be discouraged: “The economy is not rock and rolling."

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