Mortgage Rate Little Changed

Mortgage rates hovered very near to last week's averages, pausing ahead of next week's Federal Reserve meeting. Most people believe that the Fed will not raise rates at that meeting. A decision of rate change in either direction would impact short-term rates. To get a feel of where the long term rates are heading to, one needs to watch carefully fine points in Fed's statement.

According to Freddie Mac's weekly survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.36% in the week that ended today -- down slightly from its 6.37% average last week. At this time last year, the loan averaged 6.10%. The 15-year fixed rate remained unchanged at last week's average of 6.06%. At this time last year this rate was 5.65%.

Rate for 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) averaged at 6.11% increasing slightly from last week's 6.10%. This rate averaged 5.59% a year ago. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs also moved up a little this week to 5.57% from last week's rate of 5.56%. At this time in 2005, the 1-year ARM averaged only 4.89%.