30 Year Fixed Mortgage Rate Continued to New Low Record, Official from Freddie Mac

Written By: admin on January 8, 2009 One Comment

Thursday, January 8 2009, Freddie Mac said that the 30-year benchmark mortgage rate continued to plumb new lows following Federal Reserve buys of mortgage-backed securities.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.01% with an average 0.6 point for the week ending Jan. 8, the lowest average since Freddie Mac started tracking the average in 1971. Last week, the average was 5.10%, and last year it was 5.87%.

“Interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell for the tenth week to a fourth consecutive record low due in part to the Federal Reserve’s recent buys of mortgage-backed securities issued by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist, in a statement.

“On Nov. 25, 2008, the Federal Reserve announced that it plotted to buy up to $500 billion of these securities by the end of June of this year. For the sake of comparison, there were roughly $4.7 trillion of such securities backed by home mortgages available as of Sept. 30, 2008.”