Rates: Historic One Week Drop

Rates on 30-year mortgages plunged this week to the lowest level since January after the government launched a sweeping new effort to aid the U.S. housing market.

Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 5.53 percent in the largest one-week drop in 27 years. That was down from 5.97 percent last week, and the lowest since the week of Jan. 24, when it was at 5.48 percent.

Further drops could be on the way if the government launches an industry-backed plan to lower the rate on a 30-year mortgage to 4.5 percent by spending hundreds of billions to buy mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

That would follow an effort announced last week by the Federal Reserve, which is planning to purchase up to $600 billion of mortgage-backed securities and other debt issued by Fannie and Freddie and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Those institutions don’t make loans directly to consumers, but provide money to the mortgage market by packaging loans into investments.

The Fed’s move caused rates to immediately drop by about a half-point, and many in the real estate industry hope rates will keep dropping as the government increases efforts to battle the credit crisis.