which is most accurate source for mortgage rates (national average)?

which is most accurate source for mortgage rates (national average)?

am 16.08.2005 09:34:40 von Bucky

I get kind of confused by the different sources of what the current
national average is. Which one is the most accurate? Which one is
quoted by the media? For example, here are the 30-year rates from 3
different sites, they're pretty different:

Freddie Mac (Aug 11): 5.89% 0.5 pts
bankrate.com: 5.39%
HSH.com: 6.02% 0.29 pts

First of all, bankrate doesn't even show the points, so what good is
the rate without knowing how many points? And bankrate's numbers seem
way too low to be a national average. HSH rate should be slightly
higher than Freddie because HSH includes jumbo loans.

Even if the source shows points, I don't see how you can compare each
week's rates when the points are changing as well. They often show
charts plotting rate over time. Well, what about the points data, are
we supposed to just ignore it? It seems to me that they should be
picking an arbitrary number of points as the benchmark, and only taking
surveys of rates with the same points every week (like 1.0 pts).