Rates fall to new all-time lows
Mortgage rates reached another modern-day low, and homeowners took advantage by refinancing.
The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 6 basis points this week, to 4.53 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.42 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 5.41 percent; four weeks ago, it was 4.66 percent.
This is the lowest that the 30-year fixed has been in the 25-year history of Bankrate's weekly survey. The previous record was 4.57 percent, set Aug. 11. Mortgage rates haven't been this low in more than half a century. Rates on FHA-insured mortgages averaged 4.56 percent in February 1955, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Conventional mortgage rates probably were similar, although records are sketchy.
