SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Freddie Mac (FRE:Freddie Mac
News , chart , profile , more
Last: 0.78+0.03+4.29%

2:33pm 01/08/2009

Delayed quote dataAdd to portfolio
Analyst
Create alert Insider
Discuss
Financials
Sponsored by:
FRE 0.78, +0.03, +4.3%) said Thursday that the 30-year benchmark mortgage rate continued to plumb new lows following Federal Reserve purchases of mortgage-backed securities. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.01% with an average 0.6 point for the week ending Jan. 8, the lowest average since Freddie Mac started tracking the average in 1971. Last week, the average was 5.10%, and last year it was 5.87%. “Interest rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell for the tenth week to a fourth consecutive record low due in part to the Federal Reserve’s recent purchases of mortgage-backed securities issued by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist, in a statement. “On Nov. 25, 2008, the Federal Reserve announced that it planned to purchase up to $500 billion of these securities by the end of June of this year. For the sake of comparison, there were roughly $4.7 trillion of such securities backed by home mortgages available as of Sept. 30, 2008.”