Mortgage Informer

Interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped in the latest week, a move that bodes well for the hard-hit housing market as it copes with the absence of government support.

Lower interest rates on mortgages should buoy refinancing, putting more cash into consumers’ hands to funnel into the economy. They also make homes more affordable during the spring selling season, the industry’s most important period.

Mortgage rates for 30-year fixed mortgages, the most widely used loan, were 4.70 percent Tuesday afternoon, down from 4.79 percent compared to the same time last week.

Federal Reserve policy makers last month said they were in no rush to sell $1.1 trillion of mortgage-backed securities, with a majority preferring to wait until after the central bank starts raising interest rates.

“Most participants favored deferring asset sales for some time,” while others wanted to announce a schedule or start sales soon, the Fed said in minutes of its April 27-28 meeting in Washington, released today. Officials lowered their projections for inflation, excluding food and fuel, while keeping forecasts little changed for economic growth and unemployment in 2011 and 2012.