BANKING & FINANCE - Aug. 13, 1993

Mortgage Rates Fall Again: Interest rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 7.17% this week, the second consecutive drop, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. said. This week’s average was down from 7.21% a week earlier. Four weeks ago, rates hit 7.16%, the lowest since the FLMC began calculating a weekly average in April, 1971. On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 4.51%, the lowest since the corporation began tracking ARMs in 1984 and down from 4.55% last week. The rates do not include add-on fees known as points.