It is for the third-straight week that rates for 30-year home loans have plummeted, and are now close to record lows reached over the spring. This has provided an outstanding chance for borrowers to save money by refinancing their home loans.

On Thursday, Mortgage Company Freddie Mac said that the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 5.04 percent, down from 5.07 percent a week earlier. Even though the rates are above the record low of 4.78 percent hit in the spring, they are luring people to buy a home or refinance.

The latest figures came as the lowest weekly average since the week of May 28, when rates averaged 4.91 percent.

A sum of $1.25 trillion is being spent by the Federal Reserve on mortgage-backed securities, which has dropped rates on home loans, in order to support the housing market and help the economy revive from the worst recession since the 1930s.

It has been predicted that this money will get over by winter. However, some analysts predict that the central bank will invest more money to the program or even permit it to last longer by slowly reducing its purchases.

As per Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands, "Rates are likely to stay low for another six months or more, because the central bank does not want to imperil a recovery in the housing market and the overall economy by acting too quickly. That would be economically and politically unwise."

It won't be wrong to say that qualifying for a loan is still tough, even when government has gone to an unusually low level to prop up the mortgage market.

Mortgage rates are gathered by Freddie Mac on Monday through Wednesday of each week from lenders around the country, and it is common for the rates to fluctuate prominently, even within a given day.

Freddie Mac has specified a drop to 4.47 percent in the average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, from 4.5 percent last week; and this came as the lowest level on records dating back to 1991.

While rates on one-year, adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 4.58 percent from 4.64 percent, rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 4.51 percent, unchanged from a week earlier.

"The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The nationwide fee for loans in Freddie Mac's survey averaged 0.7 point for 30-year loans and 0.6 point for 15-year mortgages. The fee averaged 0.5 point for five-year and one-year loans," a source said.