30-Year Rates Fall to Four-Year Low
Rates on 30-year mortgages dropped this week to their lowest level in more than four years, effects of a startling November unemployment report and a government plan to buoy the housing market.</br></br>Freddie Mac reported Thursday that average rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 5.47 percent from 5.53 percent last week.</br></br>The rate is slightly below this year's previous low of 5.48 percent, reached in January, and the lowest since March 25, 2004.</br></br>Mortgage rates started falling after the Federal Reserve launched a sweeping new effort in late November to aid the housing market by buying up to $600 billion of mortgage-related securities and other debt issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.</br></br>Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee about half of the $11.5 trillion in outstanding debt on U.S. home loans.