Fed bought $20 bln net in agency MBS in latest week

NEW YORK Oct 8 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve bought $20 billion net of agency mortgage-backed securities in the latest week, unchanged from the previous week's net purchases, the New York Fed said on its website on Thursday.

The buys brought the U.S. central bank's total purchase of mortgage bonds guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank system to roughly $924.9 billion since January.

The Fed said it bought $51.84 billion gross of agency MBS from Oct. 1-7. At the same time, it sold $31.84 billion in mortgage securities.

The Fed aims to buy $1.25 trillion of agency MBS in a bid to bring down mortgage rates and to stimulate the battered housing sector and the overall economy. (For more details on the purchases, please double-click on: here) (Reuters Messaging: julie.haviv.reuters.com@reuters.net; e-mail: julie.haviv@thomsonreuters.com; +1-646-223-6153))