Mortgage Interest Rates: Lowest Since 1971!

Interest rates keep breaking records, dropping lower and lower, week after week.

Fear of deflation and a double-dip recession pushed the average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate home loan down to 4.42 percent, with an average origination fee of 0.7 percent. That's the lowest average rate since Freddie Mac began keeping track in 1971, according to Freddie Mac's latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. This is the ninth week in a row the survey has set a new, historic low.

Impossibly low interest rates seem to have become the new normal -- just like high unemployment. And because of economic forces including new recession fears, federal actions, and the stagnating economy, they're likely to stay very, very low for the next year, according Frank Northaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac.