Interest rates on the most popular type of U.S. home loan shot to a six-month high last week as global rates continued their march higher against a bout of stiff inflation and expectations that central banks will back further away from their pandemic-era easy-money policies. The contract rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage climbed to 3.23 percent in the week ended Oct. 15 from 3.18 percent the week before, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Wednesday in its weekly survey of conditions in the U.S. home lending market. That was the highest level since early April and is up by more than a quarter percentage point since the end of July. The increase in rates helped drive overall mortgage-application volumes down by 6.3 percent to the lowest since July, led by a 7.1 percent drop in refinancing applications, the MBA said. Refinancing application volumes are also at their lowest since July, just fractionally …