30-Year Mortgage Rates Drop Lower

The average interest rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages dropped from 6.60% the week before to 6.49% this week, Freddie Mac said. That’s nearly three quarters of a percentage point lower than the high for the year, 7.22%, reached in late April. For four straight weeks, rates have set record lows for the years since Freddie Mac began compiling the average in 1971. Separate records show rates haven’t been lower since the 1960s. Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, averaged 6.15%, a decrease from 6.27% 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 5.36%, down from 5.39% and the lowest since March 1996. The rates do not include add-on fees known as points.