My Real Estate Blog

30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.36% with an average 0.7 point for the week ending August 26, 2010, down from last week when it averaged 4.42%. Last year at this time, the 30-year averaged 5.14%.  

5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.56% this week, with an average 0.6 point, unchanged from last week. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 4.67%.  

Existing home sales plunged 27% in July, while new homes fell 12% to a new all-time record low, which led to some market concerns that the housing market may slow the economic recovery. As a result, long-term bond yields fell to the lowest levels since January 2009, allowing fixed mortgage rates to ease to new record lows this week.

House prices still appear to be stabilizing. Nationally, house prices rose 0.9% on a seasonally-adjusted basis during the second quarter of this year this year after 11 consecutive quarterly declines, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's purchase only index. Eight of the nine census regions experienced positive gains, compared to none in the first quarter.