Home loan rates decline again as inflation fears abate

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Record low mortgage rates are still declining, according to Freddie Mac, which said lenders were offering 30-year fixed loans at less than 4.5% this week and 15-year loans at less than 4%.

Freddie’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, noted that the rate of growth in the gross domestic product had been revised downward, reducing fears about inflation and as a result decreasing pressures on long-term interest rates.

Reporting a seventh straight week of declines, Freddie Mac said the 30-year rate averaged 4.49% for the week ending Thursday, down from 4.54% last week and 5.22% a year earlier.

On home loans with rates fixed for 15 years, the interest rate averaged 3.95%, down from an even 4% a week earlier and 4.63% a year earlier.

The interest rate for the five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage -- that’s the one that turns variable after five years at a fixed rate -- averaged 3.63% this week, down from 3.76% a week earlier and 4.73% a year ago.

Freddie Mac, the giant government-sponsored buyer of home loans, asks lenders about the rates they are offering on mortgages up to $417,000 to borrowers who are good credit risks. The borrowers would have paid 0.7% of the loan balance to the lenders in upfront fees and points, Freddie said.

Solid borrowers who shop around often find slightly better rates than those published in the survey.

-- E. Scott Reckard