NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Rates for long-term mortgages fell this week, setting more new lows, mortgage lender Freddie Mac said Thursday.

Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year mortgage averaged 6.05 percent in the week ending Sept. 20, with an average of 0.7 of a point payable up front to the lender. The rate fell from an average 6.18 percent last week and remained lower than its 6.80 percent average a year ago.

The average 30-year mortgage rate has not been lower since Freddie Mac began tracking it in 1971.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.47 percent, the lowest point since the mortgage lender began recording it in 1991, which was down from 5.59 percent last week and down from 6.30 percent last year. The 15-year mortgage averaged 0.7 of a point payable up front to the lender.

One-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), loosely indexed to the 10-year Treasury note, averaged 4.28 percent with an average 0.7 of a point due up front, down from last week's 4.32 percent average. It has not been lower since February 1994. A year ago the one-year ARM averaged 5.58 percent.

"Concern over weaker consumer confidence and industrial production outweighed the pick-up in retail sales and business inventories causing interest rates to decline even further this week," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist. "Adding to the decline was a flight-to-quality in the bond market from nervous investors worried about falling stock prices and the possibility of war in the Middle East."

Freddie Mac (FRE: down $0.51 to $60.30, Research, Estimates), or Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., is a publicly traded company the government established in 1970 to provide a flow of funds to mortgage lenders. It buys mortgages from banks, bundles them and then resells them as mortgage-backed securities.

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Its products, and the products of other similar entities, have become increasingly popular as an alternative to government-backed bonds, particularly with international investors.