Mortgage rates dip to first ever record low of 3.94%

Washington – Very little fanfare heralded the first-ever dip of mortgage rates below 4 percent.

According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped from 4.01% last week to 3.94% on Thursday, Oct. 6. The average rate of a 15-year fixed loan – a popular refinancing option – dipped to 3.26%, which is also a record.

Rates have been below 5% for all but two weeks during the past year, a factor which has done little to boost home sales. The year 2011 will go down in history as the worst in the past 14 years for sales of previously owned homes, according to the government's mortgage underwriting bureaus, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.