McLean, VA – Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®) in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.06 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending April 29, 2010, down slightly from last week when it averaged 5.07 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.78 percent.

The 15-year FRM this week averaged 4.39 percent with an average 0.7 point, unchanged from last week when it averaged 4.39 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.48 percent.

The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 4.00 percent this week, with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.03 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 4.80 percent.

The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 4.25 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 4.22 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 4.77 percent.

(Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total cost of obtaining the mortgage.)

"Mortgage rates on 30-year fixed loans have averaged about 5 percent over the first four months of this year, staying within a band of roughly a quarter percentage point and virtually matching 2009’s annual average," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist."

These low rates have been helping to moderate house price declines over the course of the year.

"Prices on existing homes showed a 12-month increase of 0.7 percent in February, which was the first annual increase since December 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller® 20-city composite index [PDF]. In addition, nine cities experienced positive growth, matching the number in January. Further, the Census Bureau’s Constant Quality price index showed that new home prices rose 2.5 percent in the first quarter on an annual basis."

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation's residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than five million renters.

Source: FreddieMac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), www.freddiemac.com

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released the results of a weekly applications survey for the week ending April 23, 2010 that covers over 50 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications. Survey respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts.

The Weekly Mortgage Application Survey tracks the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages, 1 year ARMs as well as application volume for both purchase and refinance applications which generates the market composite index.

The mortgage application volume decreased 2.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.

The Refinance Index fell 8.8 percent from one week earlier, while the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index climbed 7.4 percent from previous week and reached its highest level since October 2009.

The increase in the purchase index was driven largely by the government purchase index, which increased 11.9 percent from last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, while the conventional purchase index increased 3.5 percent from last week. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 8.5 percent compared with the previous week and was 2.4 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1.9 percent compared with the previous week. “Purchase activity continues to increase as we approach the end of the homebuyer tax credit program,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA's Vice President of Research and Economics. “Purchase applications were up almost 9 percent from a month ago, with a disproportionate share of the increase due to government purchase applications. Government applications for purchasing a home accounted for almost 49 percent of all purchase applications last week.”

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index fell 3.1 percent.

The four week moving average increased 1.6 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average decreased 5.8 percent for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity fell to 55.7 percent of total applications from 60.0 percent the previous week. The refinance share is at its lowest since August 2009. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity remained unchanged at 6.0 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.08 percent from 5.04 percent, with points decreasing to 0.91 from 0.98 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 4.38 percent from 4.34 percent, with points decreasing to 0.93 from 0.98 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 7.03 percent from 6.95 percent, with points increasing to 0.3 from 0.28 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

Home prices in February posted their first year-over-year increasesince December 2006, according to a housing market report released today.

Home prices increased 0.6 percent according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index as nine of the 20 cities showed gains.

"Existing and new home sales, inventories and housing starts all show tremendous improvement," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P.

"The homebuyer tax credit, available until the end of April, is the likely cause for these encouraging numbers," he added, "and this may also flow through to some of our home price data in the next few months."

Home prices are 3 percent above May 2009 level which was the bottom, but still are 30 percent down from the May 2006 peak.

Home prices actually dropped 0.9 percent compared with January. The decline was small enough to put prices in positive territory compared with 12 months earlier, when home prices were sharply falling.

The best performing market in February was San Francisco as it posted an 11.9 percent increase over the past 12 months, San Diego home prices gained 7.6 percent while Los Angeles increased 5.3%.

The biggest loser continued to be Las Vega as it saw the largest annual drop at almost 15 percent over the past 12 months.

"These data point to a risk that home prices could decline further before experiencing any sustained gains," David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee, said in a statement.

Existing home sales rose 6.8 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million units, up from the revised rate of 5.01 million in February, the highest level since December according to a National Association of Realtors report released Thursday.

Year-over-year sales jumped 16.1 percent as home resales have been above year-ago levels for nine consecutive months.

The median price of homes sold in March was $170,000, up 0.4 percent from last year’s figures.

Distressed properties comprised 35 percent of the houses sold during the month.

Total housing inventory rose 1.5 percent to 3.58 million existing homes for sale. At current sales pace, that is an 8-month supply, down from and 8.5 month supply in February.

Single-family home sales increased 7.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.68 million in March from a pace of 4.36 million in February, and were 13.3% above the pace 12 months ago.

Regionally, the Midwest had the largest increase which is up 7.2 percent in March to an annual pace of 1.19 million and was 15.5 percent compared to last year’s level.

In the South, sales increased 7.1 percent to an annual rate of 1.97 million while the West improved 6.6 percent to 1.3 million. The Northeast increased 6 percent to 890,000.

McLean, VA – Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®) in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.07 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending April 22, 2010, unchanged from last week when it averaged 5.07 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.80 percent.

The 15-year FRM this week averaged 4.39 percent with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.40 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.48 percent.

The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 4.03 percent this week, with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.08 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 4.85 percent.

The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 4.22 percent this week with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 4.13 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 4.82 percent.

(Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total cost of obtaining the mortgage.)

"Mortgage rates on fixed-loans were relatively unchanged this week while ARM rates were mixed," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. "These low mortgage rates are revitalizing the home construction industry. For instance, although new building of one-family homes slowed slightly between February and March by an annualized rate of 0.9 percent, this was primarily due to a 33.7 percent drop in the Midwest. The other three regions rose to their strongest pace since the second half of 2008.

"In addition, builder confidence rose more than the market consensus in April to the highest level since September 2009, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index . During the same month, the builder gauge of current home sales increased to its highest since March 2008."

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation's residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and more than five million renters.

Source: FreddieMac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), www.freddiemac.com