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After seeing last week’s pretty sizable increases across the board, mortgage rates decided to drop back to record lows over the course of this week.

It was sort of like mortgage rates felt bad for randomly increasing out there and decided to right the ship and head south again to hit record lows.

Not “near record lows” or “close to record lows;” these are the lowest rates ever.

EVER!

I feel like I’ve said this before, but I could be wrong.

This week’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey from Freddie Mac showed that mortgage rates dropped all across the board, except for 1-year ARMs, so let’s take a look at the numbers.

30-year fixed mortgage rates plummeted to a record low 3.87 percent with 0.8 points from last week’s 2.98 percent with 0.7 points. This is almost a full percentage point lower than last year when 30-year fixed rates were at 4.81 percent.

Are you as shocked as I am? I’m this excited.

15-year fixed mortgage rates also took a sizable drop over the course of the week. These bad boys fell from 3.24 percent with 0.8 points last week to 3.14 percent with 0.8 points this week, also a record low. Last year, 15-year fixed mortgage rates averaged 4.08 percent.

5/1-year ARMs also saw a decent drop off to 2.80 percent with 0.7 points from last week’s 2.85 percent with 0.7 points. 1-year ARMs were the only rates to see an increase over the week, jumping to 2.76 percent with 0.6 points from last week’s 2.74 percent with 0.6 points.

Last year at this time, 5/1-year ARMs and 1-year ARMs averaged 3.69 percent and 3.26 percent respectively.

I bet you that my good friend Frank Nothaft, chief economist and vice president for Freddie Mac, was jumping for joy when the rates came in this morning. He always masks his excitement, though. As always, I struggle to get a read on this guy.

He explained, “Most mortgage rates eased to all-time record lows this week as fourth quarter growth in the economy fell short of market projections. The Gross Domestic Product rose 2.8 percent in the final three months of 2011, below the market consensus forecast of 2.0 percent, while consumer spending in December was flat. One bright spot, however, was that fixed residential investment increased for the third consecutive quarter, and residential construction spending rebounded in December, rising 0.7 percent.”

Yet again, I really can’t think of a better time to lock in to a new 30-year fixed mortgage or refinance your current mortgage.  There’s no way of telling whether or not these rates will stay like this, especially after last week’s random increase, so act today!

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