Mortgage Rates Hold Steady

McLEAN, Va. - (07/07/06) – Mortgage rates held theirground this week at four-year highs, shortened by the IndependenceDay holiday. The average for the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rosea single basis point, to 6.79%; with the average for the 15-year,fixed-rate loan also rising a single bp, to 6.44% this week,according to Freddie Mac. ARM rates also held steady, with both theone-year ARM average of 5.82%, and the five-year ARM average of5.39%, unchanged from last week. Since last week's rate increase bythe Federal Reserve came as no great surprise, mortgage ratesremained nearly unchanged from the previous week,” said FrankNothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. This is fairly consistentwith our economic outlook, which continues to forecast that theinterest rate for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will graduallydrift upward but should remain under 7% for the year.