Look for home loan interest rates to continue upward creep

Interest rates for a conventional 30-year, fixed-rate home loan have increased fairly steadily from 3.34 percent at the beginning of the year to about 3.60 percent, but they are not expected to surge upward, experts said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the National Association of Realtors and other industry leaders generally agree that, unless a surprise comes along, rates probably will stay under 4 percent for the rest of 2013 and then inch up to about 4.5 percent in 2014.