Mortgage Rates Fall to 2010 Low
Home-mortgage rates fell to the lowest level of the year in recent days as Treasury yields slumped due to investors seeking a haven following last week's stock-market turmoil, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of mortgage rates.</br></br>Mortgage rates tend to follow Treasury yields. The benchmark 10-year note dropped to a five-month intraday low last Thursday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered an intraday drop of nearly 1,000 points.</br></br>The latest week was the fifth in a row that interest rates on fixed-rate mortgages fell, noted Freddie Chief Economist Frank Nothaft.</br></br>The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.93% for the week ended Thursday, down from last week's 5% average but up from 4.86% a year ago. Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages were 4.3%, compared with 4.36% and 4.27%, respectively.</br></br>Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.95%, a low since Freddie began tracking such mortgages in early 2005, down from last week's 3.97% and 4.82% a year earlier. One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs were 4.02%, down from 4.07% and 4.71%, respectively.