Mortgage Rates Fall for 5th Straight Week

Mortgage rates fell for a fifth consecutive week and, at 6.60%, haven’t been lower in more than three decades. The average interest rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped from 6.64% the week before, Freddie Mac said. That’s more than half a percentage point lower than the high for the year, 7.22%, reached in late April. It was the lowest level since the company began compiling the average in 1971. Separate records show rates haven’t been lower since 1967. Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, averaged 6.27%, a decrease from 6.32% the previous week and the lowest since the company began tracking the rate in 1991. On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.39%, down from 5.42% and the lowest in 19 months. The rates do not include add-on fees known as points.