Mortgage interest rates hit 18-month high

Mortgage rates have gone up for the eighth week in a row. The benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rose 13 basis points to 6.37 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 0.33 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 5.72 percent, and four weeks ago it was 6.07 percent. In early September, before this eight-week streak began, the 30-year averaged 5.8 percent.