"We're ending the year with mortgage interest rates practically even with their levels at the close of 2008. Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that average rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans hit 5.14 percent with 0.7 points this week.
That's up from last week's average of 5.05 percent and marked the fourth consecutive increase since rates bottomed out at a historic low (at least since Freddie started keeping track in 1971) of 4.71 percent in early December.
Rates also rose this week for 15-year mortgages, reaching an average of 4.54 percent with 0.7 points. Last week the rate was 4.45 percent.
But the rate fell slightly on 1-year adjustable-rate loans, which averaged 4.33 percent compared with 4.38 percent last week.
Mortgage rates were driven artificially low in 2009 by the Federal Reserve, which said it would buy as much as $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities to stimulate the economy. That stimulus program is scheduled to end during the first quarter of the new year." (Washington Post)
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-address/2009/12/30-year_mortgage_rates_rise_to.html
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