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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, February 7, 2003

30-year mortgage rates drop to 5.88 percent

Current Hawai'i mortgage rates

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Fixed mortgage rates around the nation edged down this week, with rates on one-year adjustable rate mortgages holding steady at their lowest level in 19 years of record keeping.

The average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dipped to 5.88 percent for this week, down slightly from 5.9 percent last week, Freddie Mac reported yesterday in its latest survey.

Rates on 30-year mortgages started the new year by dropping to a new low of 5.85 percent for the week ending Jan. 3. That rate was the lowest since the mortgage giant began tracking 30-year mortgage rates in 1971. Records that reach back earlier than Freddie Mac's indicate that rate is the lowest since the early 1960s.

The 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 5.27 percent, compared with 5.28 percent last week.

Rates for one-year adjustable rate mortgages this week stood at 3.89 percent. That was unchanged from the previous week when these rates dropped to their lowest level since the Federal Home Mortgage Corp., or Freddie Mac, began tracking them in 1984.

"Mortgage rates are in a holding pattern right now as the country tries to smooth out the knots in the economy," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist.

Low mortgage rates powered sales of both new homes and previously owned homes to record highs last year. Some economists are predicting that 2003 could turn out to be the second-best year for home sales on the belief that mortgage rates will remain fairly stable.

This week's mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points. Thirty-year and one-year adjustable mortgages carried an average fee of 0.7 points this week, while 15-year mortgages had an average 0.6-point financing fee.