NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Interest rates for long-term mortgages held steady this week as the troubled housing market continued to weigh on the nation's economy, Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
The government-backed mortgage finance giant said rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.52% for the week ending Thursday, unchanged from last week.
The recent average remains lower from the same time last year when rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.59%.
The news came as the housing market - with record foreclosures and sinking home sales prices - continued to take a toll.
"The housing market is continuing to act as a drag on the economy," Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's vice president and chief economist, said in a statement. "Residential fixed investment subtracted 0.6 percentage points off second-quarter growth in real GDP."
Inventory still high. Mortgage applications increased slightly for the week ended Aug. 1, but were still much lower compared with the same week last year, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.
The MBA said its Market Composite Index -- a measure of mortgage loan application volume -- was 432.6, up a seasonally unadjusted 2.4% compared with the previous week and down 33.7% from a year earlier.
"Although showing some initial signs of improvement, the inventory of unsold homes remains at historically high levels," Nothaft said.
There was some promising housing news on Thursday, however. The number of pending homes for sale rose 5.3% in June, a surprise rebound from the previous month, according to the National Association of Realtors. However, sales are still down 12.3% from last year. (Full story)
The country's homeownership rate, meanwhile, essentially held steady during the second quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter and second quarter of 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Rates for other types of mortgages were mixed.
Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) said 15-year fixed-rate mortgages this week had rates averaging 6.10%, an increase from last week when they averaged 6.07%. A year ago, the 15-year mortgages averaged 6.25%.
Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 6.05% this week, down from last week when they averaged 6.07%. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 6.33%, Freddie Mac said.
One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 5.22% this week, down from last week when it averaged 5.27%. A year ago, the one-year ARM averaged 5.65%.
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