BANKING & FINANCE - July 9, 1993

Mortgage Rates Fall to Record Low 7.19%: Interest rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages were down .04% from last week’s average, marking the fourth consecutive decline. It was the lowest since the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. began calculating a weekly average in April, 1971. Rates that hit 7.52% seven weeks ago resumed the decline in mid-June with the release of two government reports showing that inflation quieted in May. On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 4.56%, the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking ARM rates in 1984.