Mortgage rates drop to another record low

Mortgage rates inched down again this week as investors worried about the shaky U.S. economy and kept their eyes on Europe's lingering debt problems. The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgagefell 3 basis points this week to 4.32 percent, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. This is the lowest level the fixed rate has reached since Bankrate started the weekly mortgage survey nearly 26 years ago. The mortgages in this week's survey had an average total of 0.42 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 4.54 percent; four weeks ago, it was 4.45 percent.READ MORE