Mortgage interest rates continued to drop over the past week, reaching new record lows, according to data from Freddie Mac through Aug. 19. The popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.42 percent, down from 4.44 percent last week and 5.12 percent one year ago at this time. It was the ninth week in a row that the 30-year mortgage has either met or set a new record low, said Amy Crews Cutts, deputy chief economist for Freddie Mac. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage’s average interest rate also dropped to 3.9 percent from last week’s 3.92 percent. During the same week last year, the 15-year mortgage averaged 4.56 percent. Meanwhile, the five-year and one-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages remained unchanged, with 3.56 percent and 3.53 percent average interest rates, respectively. “Investors in long-term bonds appear very confident that inflation will remain in check, and as a result long-term fixed mortgage rates have continued to fall,” Cutts said. TRD