http://www.firstempiremortgage.com/todays-mortgage-rates.html Today's mortgage rates ensure you get the best deal from First Empire. en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT Weblog Editor 2.0 Today's Mortgage Rates - Understanding them. The Federal Reserve's rate-setting committee meets next week, and it probably will raise the overnight lending rate. While that doesn't necessarily mean that mortgage rates will rise, we expect to see an upward trend across the board with a distinct increase over today's mortgage rates. Rates across the board were relatively stable in the last week. The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 3 basis points to , according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.33 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 5.72 percent. As you can see today's mortgage rates are better than previous, but we are concerned. While the The benchmark 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 3 basis points, the benchmark one-year adjustable-rate mortgage rose 4 basis points. This means that for short-term loans, today's mortgage rates aren't as good a deal, but longer-term mortgage holders can see a distinct improvement in their situation if they take advantage of today's mortgage rates. The Federal Reserve has raised its target for the federal funds rate -- also known as the overnight rate because it's what banks charge one another for overnight loans to cover reserves -- five times in a row, starting at the end of June. The Fed's rate moves don't directly affect current mortgage rates, but many have said the indirect effects are starting to be noticed in other financial areas tangental to mortgages. Take a look at what has happened to 30-year, fixed mortgage rates and what happened to one-year adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs, since the first Fed rate increase. Rates on both kinds of loans plummeted in the week after the Fed's June 30 hike, then went up again. One month after the Fed's action, the rate on the 1-year ARM had returned to where it had been four weeks earlier -- 4.43 percent. But the average rate on a 30-year fixed was about an eighth of a point lower. Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT