If your budget allows for higher monthly payments, a 15-year mortgage offers a faster path to homeownership at a lower interest rate.

If you're hoping to buy your first home soon, searching for the best mortgage rates for first-time buyers is an essential part of the process. Here are the best rates currently available.

Whether or not today's drop in rates is meaningful depends on one's perspective, but in the context of recent rate movement, it's definitely noticeable.  The simplest way to think about the improvement is as follows: the average lender is now about an eighth of a percent lower in just over a week.