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Mortgage rates remain firm
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February 3, 2000: 2:53 p.m. ET
Rates are stable for second week, unaffected by Federal Reserve
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Mortgage rates held firm for the second consecutive week, remaining unaffected by Wednesday's Federal Reserve interest hike.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 8.25 percent for the week ending Feb. 5, according to a Freddie Mac survey. This was in line with last week's average.
The average rate on a 15-year mortgage edged up slightly to 7.85 percent from last week's average of 7.84 percent. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.38 percent.
Adjustable one-year mortgages averaged 6.65 percent, unchanged from last week's average, but still up from last year's 5.63 percent
(Click here for a breakdown of average mortgage rates by U.S. region).
"Mortgage rates not only remained virtually unchanged this week, but will probably go down a little next week," said Robert Van Order, chief economist for Freddie Mac. "This is due in part to the Treasury's announcement that it will sell fewer bonds."
Van Order said the figures also represent the market's non-reaction to the Fed's rate increase of one-quarter of a percentage point.
"Having anticipated [the rise] by the Fed, the financial world had already incorporated the Fed's actions into the market." Van Order said.
Freddie Mac, Federal Home Mortgage Corp., is a publicly traded company that buys mortgages from banks, bundles them and then
resells them as mortgage-backed securities. 
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