The past week's mortgage rates, monitored by Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), for 30 year fixed rate mortgages average 4.94 percent for the week ending October 1st. This is a drop from last week's 5.04 percent. 30 year fixed rate mortgages averaged 6.10 percent the same time last year.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage this week averaged 4.36 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.46 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.78 percent. This is the lowest the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage has been since Freddie Mac started tracking it in 1991.
The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 4.42 percent this week, with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.51 percent. A year ago, the 5-year adjustable rate mortgage averaged 6.00 percent.
The one-year Treasury-indexed adjustable rate mortgage averaged 4.49 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.52 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year adjustable rate mortgage averaged 5.12 percent.
"Low mortgage rates are helping to stabilize home sales," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "New home sales in August rose to the highest annualized pace since September 2008 and the inventory of unsold houses fell to the lowest level since February 1983.
Although existing home sales fell somewhat in August, it was still the second strongest showing in 23 months. Furthermore, house prices increased for the second month in a row in July, after adjusting for seasonality, based on the 20-city composite S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index. Moreover, the increases were more broad-based in July with house prices rising in 17 of these metropolitan areas, compared to 16 in June.
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