30-Year Mortgage Rate Declines to 6.28%

Mortgage rates around the country, which had been moving upward, dropped this week, offering a dose of good news for prospective home buyers.

Freddie Mac reported in its weekly survey that rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.28%. That’s down sharply from last week’s rate of 6.37%, which was the highest in more than two years.

Rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.81% this week, down from 5.90%. One-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 5.14%, compared with 5.20% last week. Rates on five-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 5.75%, down from 5.86%.

The nationwide averages for mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points. Thirty-year and 15-year mortgages each carried a nationwide average fee of 0.6 point, one-year ARMs averaged 0.7 point and five-year hybrid ARMs carried 0.8 point.