26 Feb 09 Record Low Mortgage Rates Holding
In the news release Nothaft said “Reductions in home prices and affordable interest rate mortgages have yet to spur housing demand.” You can see how new sale prices continued to decline home. “For instance, house prices declined by 8.7% for the twelve months ending in December 2008 and were down 10.9% from their highs set in April of 2007, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s purchase-only monthly home price index. See original article > Low Mortgage Rates Continue
Low mortgage interest rates continued this week amid mixed reports about the slowing economy, Freddie Mac’s chief economist said on Thursday. According to Freddie Mac chief economist Frank Nothaft, “Both the core producer price and consumer price indexes ticked up in January, higher than the market consensus, while consumer confidence in February dropped to the lowest reading since records began in January 1967,” said, in a news release.
Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.07% for the week ending February 26, up from last week’s 5.04% average but still lower than their 6.24% average a year ago, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of conventional rates. Meanwhile, fifteen-year fixed-rate home loans averaged 4.68%, unchanged from last week and down from 5.72% a year ago. To obtain current mortgage rates, the fixed interest mortgage loans and the 5-year ARM required payment of an average 0.7 point, while the 1-year ARM required an average 0.6 point.
