BANKING & FINANCE - Sept. 17, 1993

Mortgage Rates Rise: Interest rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose for the first time in seven weeks but remained below 7%, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. said. This week’s average was 6.96%, up from a 25-year low of 6.82% last week. It was the sharpest weekly increase in 11 months but the fourth week in a row that the average remained below 7%. On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 4.36%, up from a nine-year low of 4.33% last week. Fifteen-year mortgages, an increasingly popular option for people refinancing their mortgages, averaged 6.49% this week, up from 6.35% last week. The rates do not include points.