Rates on 15 and 30 year mortgages continued to fall last week according to Freddie Mac, although the 5/1 and 1-year ARM were up by the smallest possible amount.

Freddie�s survey for the week ended June 30 had the 30 year down from 5.57 percent to 5.53 percent and the 15 year dropping from 5.16 percent to 5.12 percent The 30-year figure established a new low for the year, and the 15-year was at its lowest since February 10. The two ARMS tracked by Freddie were each up a mere 1 basis point with the 5/1 at 5.06 percent and the 1-year at 4.24. Points remained unchanged from last week with the 1-year at 0.7 and the other three at 0.6.

Consensus between the Freddie Mac survey and that of the Mortgage Bankers Association on the direction of mortgage rates never seems to last more than a single week and the MBA reported across the board increases for the three mortgage products it tracks. The 30-year fixed increased from 5.47 percent to 5.58 percent and the 15-year increased from 5.06 percent for the week ended June 24 to 5.18 percent for the week ended July 1. The 1-year ARM was up to 4.60 percent from 4.42 percent one week earlier.

Mortgage applications continued their healthy pace with both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted figures up about 9.5 percent from the previous week and 23.2 percent compared to the same week in 2004.

Refinancing as a share of overall mortgage activity continued to grow, reaching 45.7 percent compared to 45.4 percent the previous week. The ARM share also blipped up just a bit, increasing to 30.7 percent of total applications from 30.0 percent the previous week.