Rates on 30-year, 15-year mortgages fall

Rates on 30-year and 15-year mortgages fell this week, good news for people thinking about buying a home.

Freddie Mac, in its weekly survey released Thursday, reported that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 5.75 percent for the week ending Sept. 16. That was down from 5.83 percent last week and marked the lowest rate on 30-year mortgages since the beginning of April.

Rates on 30-year mortgages hit a high this year of 6.34 percent the week of May 13. Rates slowly drifted downward as economic activity cooled in the late spring and early summer and inflation fears receded.

For 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, rates decreased this week to 5.13 percent, from 5.22 percent last week.

However, rates on one-year adjustable rate mortgages rose slightly to 4.03 percent, from last week's 4 percent.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to boost short-term interest rates next week by one-quarter percentage point to 1.75 percent, which would mark its third rate increase this year.

Freddie Mac's chief economist, Frank Nothaft, said he didn't see such an increase as "having a significant impact on long-term mortgage rates."

The nationwide averages for mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The 30-year mortgage and 15-year mortgages each carried a 0.8 point fee. One-year ARMs carried an average 0.7 point.

A year ago, rates on 30-year mortgages averaged 6.16 percent with 15-year mortgages at 5.46 percent and one-year ARMs at 3.87 percent.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, meanwhile, said refinancing accounted for 43.2 percent of all home mortgage applications filed last week, up from 41.4 percent the previous week.