Record-Low Home-Loan Rates Could Begin Creeping Higher by Late 2012

This year the benchmark 30-year rate has held below 4 percent in all but one week. But forecasters say the rate honeymoon is coming to an end. Freddie Mac’s April U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook expects 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to gradually increase in the second half of 2012 to about 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent by the end of the year.