Rates on 30-year fixed mortgages fall to 4.95 percent, weeks before Fed exit
By Alan Zibel, APThursday, March 11, 2010
Mortgage rates remain below 5 percent
WASHINGTON — Mortgage rates have held below the 5 percent threshold for the second straight week, only weeks before a government program that has been keeping rates low is scheduled to expire.
The mortgage finance company Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 4.95 percent this week, down from 4.97 percent a week earlier.
Rates dropped to a record low of 4.71 percent in December and have hovered around 5 percent since, kept down by a Federal Reserve campaign to stabilize the housing market by lowering mortgage rates.
The central bank’s $1.25 trillion mortgage security buyback program is set to expire March 31. But the Fed has held the door open to extending the program if the economy weakens.
