Current Issue
Several 30- and 15-year fixed mortgage interest rates indices fell to record lows in two national surveys.
Freddie Mac’s (FRE: 1.1793 +1.66%) weekly survey of average interest rates put the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) at 4.83% with an average 0.7 point for the week ending Nov. 12, down from the average rate of 4.91% the previous week. That’s a mere 5bps shy of Freddie Mac’s record low of 30-year FRM rates, reached twice in April this year. Last year, the rate was 6.04%.
Freddie Mac put the 15-year FRM at 4.32% with an average 0.6 point, down from last week’s 4.4% and the lowest rate for the product since Freddie Mac began its 15-year FRM survey in 1991. A year ago, the average rate for the loan was 5.73%.
Bankrate.com’s survey of large US banks and thrifts put the 30-year FRM at 5.06%, the lowest in the survey’s 24-year history and down 13bps from the previous week. The previous low on the Bankrate survey was 5.13% in April. Bankrate.com put the average rate for a 15-year FRM at 4.48%, down 13bps from the previous week.
“Low fixed rates throughout the third quarter prompted an estimated $1.1trn in refinancing activity, saving homeowners about $10bn in aggregate monthly payments over the first 12 months of their new loan,” said Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist Frank Nothaft. “Moreover, for the fourth consecutive quarter, more than 95% of prime borrowers who originally had an ARM selected a conventional fixed-rate mortgage in the third quarter of this year.”
The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 4.25% with an average 0.6 point this week, Freddie Mac said, down from 4.35% in the previous week. Freddie also reported the one-year Treasury-indexed ARM rate at 4.35% with an average 0.6 point, down from last week’s rate of 4.47%.
Bankrate.com put the five-year ARM at 4.58%, unchanged from the previous week.
Write to Austin Kilgore.
