Property Crossroads - Real Estate Info

US Mortgage Rates Lower than a Year Ago

by Maricel Ferrer-Custodio on September 17th, 2007

"Interest rates on prime conforming loans fell across the board in the past week, with rates on 30-year fixed mortgages averaging 0.15 percentage points below the previous week’s level." as announced by Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist in a news release.

The current interest rates for the week ending September 13 are:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.31%
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.97%
• Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMS) averaged 6.17%
• One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 5.66%

However, certain conditions must be met to avail these rates:

"The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage required payment of an average 0.5 point, and the 15-year fixed-rate required payment of an average 0.4 point.  The five-year ARM required payment of an average 0.6 point, and the one-year ARM required payment of an average 0.8 point. A point is 1% of the total mortgage amount."

This is a good sign for the real estate market. A welcome news for borrowers who are looking to refinance or purchase a home. However, I would still recommend that buyers should aim to save for a bigger deposit and have more money in reserve for the nasty surprises.  It is hard to ignore the lessons of the subprime crisis.  Prevention is the best thing you can do to avoid foreclosure.

What do you think of these new rates? Is it enough to entice you back into the real estate market?

Source: RISMedia

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POSTED IN: Breaking News