- theMReport.com - https://themreport.com -

Mortgage Rates Largely Unchanged This Week. Again

Mortgage rates remained largely unchanged this week as debt crises in Europe drag on, with finance leaders and heads of state there seemingly unable to broker a solution.

[IMAGE]

Mortgage giant ""Freddie Mac"":http://www.freddiemac.com/ and finance Web site ""Bankrate.com each"":http://www.bankrate.com/ released separate surveys chronicling lurches in interest rates for loans.

For Freddie, the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hovered at 3.99 percent, down one percentage point from 4 percent last week. Bankrate.com reported seeing rates for the same loan also fall one percentage point, cresting at 4.24 percent from 4.25 percent.

[COLUMN_BREAK]

The finance Web site said that Europe's financial system resembled the U.S. system in that mortgage rates fell on sour news from the latter, adding that ""the result is much the same ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô a higher-than-typical cost of borrowing when compared to the rock-bottom government rates.""

Bankrate.com also fielded record lows for jumbo 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, with rates for the loan falling to 4.68 percent for the first time in the history of the survey.

Freddie saw 15-year loans fall from 3.30 percent last week to 3.27 percent this week, compared with Bankrate.com's unchanged 3.48 percent.

For the GSE, 5-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) rose to 2.93 percent, up from 2.90 percent seen last week, while the 1-year Treasury ARM climbed to 2.80 percent this week from 2.78 percent last week.

""These low rates and home prices have pushed housing affordability to record highs this year,"" ""Frank Nothaft"":http://www.freddiemac.com/bios/exec/nothaft.html, VP and chief economist with Freddie, said of the figures in a statement.

Bankrate.com rounded out mortgage rates this week with a fall in 5-year and 1-year ARMs to 3.18 percent this week, down from 3.21 percent last week.