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Mortgage rates moved higher this week after spending a month within a hair or two of 4.5%, the latest surveys showed.

The 30-year fixed-rate loan was at 4.6% in the closely watched Freddie Mac tally, up from 4.51% a week earlier and back to where it was at the end of May, before the latest dip down. The rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond, which has moved higher since hitting a recent low June 24.

Freddie Mac, which asks lenders each week about the terms they are offering to well-qualified borrowers, said the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage was being offered at an average rate of 3.75% this week. Last week the rate averaged 3.69%.

The borrowers in the survey would have had solid credit, 20% down payments or home equity and would have paid 0.7% of the loan amount upfront on average in fees and discount points to the lenders.

The Freddie Mac news release said rates for adjustable loans are on the rise as well. But the big government-controlled mortgage finance company sought to emphasize that home finance is still a terrific deal by historical standards.

“Interest rates on all mortgages outstanding in the first quarter of this year averaged just under 6%,” said Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft. “With today’s rates, these homeowners who have the ability to refinance could shave $169 per month in interest payments on a $200,000, 30-year fixed mortgage.”

However, the trend of rising rates seemed likely to further cut into already dwindling refinances, since most homeowners willing and able to replace their loans already have done so with rates below 5% for much of the last two years.

A Mortgage Bankers Assn. report on home-loan applications, released Wednesday, showed a 9.2% decrease in new refinancing last week from the previous week. Refi volume has now declined for three consecutive weeks.

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– E. Scott Reckard

Photo: Freddie Mac headquarters in McLean, Va. The most recent Freddie Mac reports puts the rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage loan at 4.6%. Credit: Freddie Mac

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Tim Geithner is considering leaving his post as Secretary of the Treasury after a deal to raise the debt ceiling is reached, a source familiar with the discussion told CNN Thursday.

Geithner is the lone remaining member of President Obama’s original economic team.

Asked by former President Bill Clinton on Thursday at a Clinton Global Initiative event about his future plans, Geithner said he would be doing his job “for the foreseeable future.”

A Treasury official said that Geithner will not make any decisions while he’s focused on negotiations over the debt limit and deficit reduction.

Another source familiar with the discussions between Geithner and the White House said it could be a while before Geithner’s ultimate departure. “You have to have somebody lined up for the job — you can’t just leave,” this source said. “And there’s a relative scarcity of people who would fit the bill.”

Obama nominated Geithner to be the 75th Secretary of the Treasury, and the Senate confirmed him on Jan. 26, 2009.

Geithner went on to spearhead the administration’s response to the financial crisis that threatened to unravel economic growth around the globe.

That response included a bailout of the U.S. auto industry, a massive economic stimulus package and a landmark Wall Street reform effort. So-called stress tests of the nation’s largest banks in early 2009 also helped shore up confidence in financial markets.

Geithner’s first days in the administration were not without stumbles, as markets met his efforts to support the banking industry with skepticism, and giant bonuses paid to executives at bailed-out insurer AIG sparked public outrage.

But Geithner emerged as one of the strongest voices on Obama’s economic team.

“I think he has done a great job in a backbreaking position,” Clinton said Thursday.

Another member of Obama’s original team, Council of Economic Advisers chairman Austan Goolsbee, has said he will leave the administration in August to return to the University of Chicago.

That leaves the administration with two holes to fill in the months leading into the 2012 presidential race, where the economy is expected to be issue No. 1.

National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers, and Office of Management director Peter Orszag left the administration last year. Christina Romer, the original chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, has also left.

Before joining the administration, Geithner held the top post at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he played a crucial advisory role during the financial crisis of 2008.

Before joining the Fed, he held posts at the IMF and worked in the Clinton administration Treasury Department.

– CNNMoney’s Jen Liberto, CNN’s Gloria Borger, Chief Political Analyst, and Jessica Yellin, Chief White House Correspondent, contributed to this report.

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