Fixed-rate mortgages near record low!!

Fixed-rate mortgages near record low
Average 30-year loan below 5% for first time in two months
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
Last update: 10:42 a.m. EDT March 19, 2009Comments: 13CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Rates on fixed-rate mortgages dropped to near record lows this week, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage making an encore appearance below 5%, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates, released on Thursday.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.98% for the week ending March 19, down from 5.03% last week. The mortgage averaged 5.87% a year ago. It hasn't been lower since the week ending Jan. 15, when it hit record low of 4.96%. Read why 5% may be the bottom for mortgage rates.
Fifteen-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.61% this week, down from 4.64% last week and 5.27% a year ago. The 15-year mortgage hasn't been lower since the week ending June 13, 2003, when it averaged 4.60%.

"Following the March 18 Federal Reserve monetary policy statement, which announced further spending initiatives on financial assets, long-term bond yields plummeted. Yields on 10-year Treasury bonds fell by about a half percentage point after the announcement, marking the largest one-day decline since Oct. 20, 1987

Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 4.98%, down slightly from last week's 4.99%. The ARM averaged 5.56% a year ago.
But 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 4.91%, up from 4.80% last week, yet still lower than its 5.15% average a year ago.
To obtain the rates, all mortgages in the survey required payment of an average 0.7 point. A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged as prepaid interest.
The Mortgage Bankers Association on Wednesday said that the volume of mortgage applications filed was up a seasonally adjusted 21.2% last week, compared with the week before.