The interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage fell again last week, plunging to a 19-month low, according to a new report from Zillow (Z).
Current rate borrowers were quoted an average interest rate of 3.58% on Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace in the week that ended Tuesday, down from 3.72% last week.
According to Zillow’s report, the 30-year FRM rate jumped during last week, peaking at 4.03% on Friday, before falling back down to its now customary level of sub-4% interest rates.
"Rates fell dramatically last week primarily due to fears of slowing global growth, weak equity markets, falling oil prices and low market activity over the New Year's holiday," said Erin Lantz, vice president of mortgages at Zillow.
"Given the recent history of markets largely overlooking strong U.S. data, we expect rates to remain flat or fall slightly this week on international news."
Borrowers on Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace were also quoted an average interest rate of 2.88% for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, down from 2.98 last week. The average interest rate for a 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage was 2.71%, down from 2.83% last week.
The drop in interest rates on Zillow’s Mortgage Marketplace echoed what was shown in the latest Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market survey, which showed that the 30-year FRM averaged 3.73% for the week ended Jan. 8, down from last week’s 3.87%.
By contrast, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.51% during the same time period in 2014, according to Freddie’s data.
Additionally, the 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 3.05% from 3.15% a week prior, according to Freddie.
Freddie also reported that the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage decreased from 3.01% last week to 2.98%.
