Nationwide mortgage rates remained below 3% for the eighth consecutive week in early September, but economists believe job growth may determine how much longer they’ll stay so low.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.87% during the week ending Sept. 3, Freddie Mac reported.

Freddie Mac is a government-controlled company that helps provide money for the U.S. housing market by buying residential mortgages and packaging pools of those loans for sale to investors. The company, whose name is short for Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., is overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

“Job growth seems to be very critical for the following several months as it will indicate when the fed’s tapering will likely start,” Nadia Evangelou, a senior economist and director of forecasting for the National Association of Realtors, wrote for the association’s blog. “There is ample talk about the fed cutting its monthly bond purchases before the end of the year.”

The fed’s asset purchases have helped keep rates lower than they otherwise would be, Evangelou added. “Expect mortgage rates to rise further when the fed will raise interest rates since rising interest rates increase the cost of mortgages,” she noted. But “that won’t likely happen until the economy hits full employment.”

Nearly 1.9 million jobs nationwide were added during June and July. However, only 235,000 jobs were added in August. About 17 million have been recovered since lockdown in April 2020, but another 5 million are still needed to reach the country’s prior peak before the pandemic, said Lawrence Yun, the association’s chief economist.

The latest unemployment rate was 5.2% with wages rising by 4.8% over the year, Yun said. However, the consumer price inflation of 5.2% is “eating away at those wage gains.”

Freddie Mac reported the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Sept. 3:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.87%, with an average 0.6 point, unchanged from previous week. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 2.93%.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.18%, with an average 0.6 point, rising slightly from a 2.17% -average from previous week. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 2.42%.
• 5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.43%, with an average 0.3 point, increasing from previous week’s 2.42% average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 2.93%.

Freddie Mac reports average commitment rates along with average points to better reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining a mortgage.