30-year mortgage rate edges down to new low

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Another week, another record low mortgage rate. Just barely.

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed loan in this week’s Freddie Mac survey was 4.57%, down from 4.58% a week earlier.

According to the big mortgage buyer, that was the lowest rate in the 39-year history of the survey, which asks lenders that work with Freddie about popular combinations of rates and fees they are offering to consumers.

However, Freddie’s national survey of offering rates showed the average 15-year fixed rate loan
rising from 4.04% to 4.07%.

The survey, released Thursday morning, asks the lenders what rates they are quoting to well-qualified buyers who have a 20% down payment or 20% equity in their homes if they are refinancing.

The lenders said the borrowers would have paid 0.7% of the loan amount in fees to obtain the fixed rates.

Variable mortgage interest rates were slightly lower.

Freddie said the five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 3.75% this week, with an average 0.7% in fees, down from last week when it averaged 3.79%.

This rate was also an all-time low since 2005, when Freddie Mac began tracing the popular loan option, which has a fixed rate for the first five years.

The one-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 3.75% with an average 0.7% in fees, down from 3.80% last week.

Well-qualified borrowers who shop around or pay additional points upfront often can get better rates than those in the survey.

-- E. Scott Reckard