Mortgage Rates Hit Record Lows for Seventh Consecutive Week

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Mortgage rates set a new record lows in two weekly surveys for the seventh consecutive week.

The Freddie Mac survey put the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) at 4.49% with an average 0.7 origination point for the week ending Aug. 5, down from last week's average of 4.54% and a year ago, when the average was 5.22%. It's a new record low for the survey, which began in 1971.

The Bankrate survey of large banks and thrifts put the average rate for a 30-year FRM at 4.66% with a 0.42 origination point, down from last week's average of 4.71% and a new record low for the nearly 25-year-old survey.

Vice president and chief economist of Freddie Mac, Frank Nothaft, suggested GDP growth was the cause of record low mortgage rates.

“Annual revisions cut the cumulative GDP growth in half over the past three years ending in the first quarter of 2010 from 1.4 percent to 0.6 percent," he said. "This reduces inflationary pressures and allows longer-term rates room to ease."

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