Mortgage rates low, housing industry strong - Aug. 6, 1998

Personal Finance > Your Home

Mortgage rates stay low

August 6, 1998: 2:59 p.m. ET

Freddie Mac says housing industry will hold up even in economic slowdown

NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Continuing low mortgage interest rates will keep the housing industry strong even if the rest of the economy slows, mortgage firm Freddie Mac said Thursday.
     For the week ending Aug. 7, the rate on U.S. 30-year fixed mortgages fell to an average 6.94 percent from 6.97 percent last week, while 15-year loans also slipped to 6.63 percent from 6.64 percent.
     One-year adjustable rate mortgages were also down, dropping to an average 5.61 percent from 5.62 percent. A year ago, the 30-year rate averaged 7.46 percent, the 15-year 7.00 percent and the one-year adjustable 5.53 percent.
     "Mortgage rates have not changed much these last few months, remaining at very affordable levels," Freddie Mac chief economist Robert Van Order said. "This has contributed to keeping the housing industry strong, even while the overall economy slows."
     Freddie Mac said lenders charged an average 1.1 in fees and points on 30-year and 15-year loans, unchanged from last week. Fees and points on one-year adjustable loans also averaged 1.1, down slightly from last week.

Back to top

RELATED STORIES
Mortgages rates inch up - July 23, 1998

RELATED SITES
Bank Rate Monitor CNNfn's Mortgage Calculator Refinance Calculator Freddie Mac
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window External sites are not endorsed by CNNmoney

© 2008 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy

Live Quotes automatically refresh, but individual equities are delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET.
* : Time reflects local markets trading time. † - Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Disclaimer

Copyright © 2008 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.