Mortgage Rates Flat - 30 Year Still Under 5%

Average mortgage rates moved very little over the past week with the 30-year fixed rate mortgage moving up 1 basis points from 4.95% to 4.96%. The BestCashCow averages also rose slightly, with the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage moving from 4.964% to 4.981%.

Averages though won't get you a mortgage and I like to check and see what rate is actually available. Since I live in Massachusetts I checked Massachusetts mortgage rates. Below I compared the best rate I could find on a $200,000 30-year fixed rate mortgage with 0 points:

This Week Last Week

Rate: 4.750% 4.750%

Points: 0 0

Fees: $1,995 $1,995

AimLoan.com continues to offer the best 30-year fixed rate mortgage in Massachusetts according to the BestCashCow rate tables at 4.750%. It has remained at this rate for 7 out of the last 8 weeks. Despite the discussion of the Fed ending its program to keep mortgage rates low, they have moved very little over the past few weeks. Will they move up in the future? I explore this a bit in an article entitled Will Mortgage Rates Rise When the Fed MBS Program Ends? The bottom line seems to be yes, but not as much as people once feared.

Other mortgage averages also showed little movement. The 15-year FRM this week averaged 4.33 percent, up from last week when it averaged 4.33 percent. The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 4.09 versus last week's 4.05 percent. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM dropped from 4.22% to 4.11%.

Here's what Freddie Mac had to say about the rate situation:

"Mortgage rates for fixed-rate mortgages were virtually unchanged this week as the effects of the prior storms emerged in recent housing data," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "New construction slowed by 5.9 percent in February to 575,000 homes. Both the South and Northeast regions had all the declines due to the snow storms. In addition, homebuilder confidence unexpectedly dipped in March according to the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index .

"With house prices starting to stabilize and even rise, homeowners on aggregate are slowly building back equity in their homes based on figures from the Federal Reserve Board. After losing almost $7.9 trillion in home equity since the end of 2006, homeowners regained almost $1.1 trillion over the past three quarters ending in 2009."

Mortgage rates continue to move in a tight range. As the chart shows, they've gone mostly sidways since September of 2009. Many analysts are predicting rates will rise, but we have yet to see any indication of that.

Use the BestCashCow rate tables to find the best mortgage rates in your area.