Mortgage Rates Down Slightly This Week

Benchmark home mortgage rates declined slightly over the past week, but other home loan products made slight gains, Freddie Mac said in its weekly survey.

The government-sponsored home loan buyer said that average rates on a 30-year fixed-rate loan fell to 6.45 percent for the week ending August 30, 2007 - down from 6.52 percent last week.

Last year at this time, 30-year mortgage rates were 6.44 percent. Freddie Mac said the results were mixed because of moves in Treasury bonds.

“Rates on conforming long-term fixed-rate mortgages declined slightly, while rates on one-year adjustable rate mortgages increased by about a quarter of a percent,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist.

“The increase in ARMs is consistent with movement of the yields on short-term Treasury securities, which have exhibited higher volatility recently.”

Rates on 15-year fixed-rate home loans - an extremely popular mortgage refinance option - averaged 6.12 percent in the latest week.

That’s down from mortgage rates of 6.18 percent last week. A year ago, the 15-year home loan could be obtained for a rate of 6.14 percent.

Five-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), the most common ARMs, averaged 6.35 percent this week, up from 6.34 percent last week.

A year ago, right around when things started to turn south for the mortgage loan industry as a whole, the 5-year ARM averaged 6.11 percent.

One-year ARMs averaged 5.84 percent, up from 5.60 percent last week. They were right around that (5.59 percent) at this time last year.

SOURCE: CNN Money