Mortgage Rate Trends for the week 08/10/2007

Although fears surrounding the mess the sub-prime mortgage sector is currently in have been bounding about for some months now, announcements by several funds that they were to freeze withdrawals has had markets around the world running for cover in the fear that a credit crunch is on the way.  It comes as a somewhat pleasant surprise, therefore, to find that according to Bankrate.com's national survey of large lenders, fixed rate mortgage rates saw a fall for the third week in a row.  Both 30-year fixed rate mortgages and 15-year fixed rate mortgages fell five basis points over the course of the last seven days.  30-year fixed rate mortgage rates ended this week at 6.66 per cent.  15-year fixed rate mortgage rates ended the week at 6.33 per cent.  Unfortunately, however, 5-year adjustable rate mortgage rates didn't fair so well, climbing nineteen basis points over the course of the week to end the week at 6.55 per cent.  Unfortunately, this has more than clawed-back the recent falls seen in 5-year adjustable rate mortgage rates.  A reduction or increase of one basis point is equivalent to a reduction or increase of one-hundredth of one percentage point.