Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said additional purchases of mortgage-backed securities are a “viable option” if economic conditions warrant further easing.

“The housing sector is a very important sector,” Bernanke said today at a press conference in Washington after a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Adding to mortgage-bond holdings is “certainly something we would consider if conditions” are appropriate.

The policy-setting FOMC today said “economic growth strengthened somewhat in the third quarter,” while also saying “significant downside risks” remain to the outlook. Officials left unchanged their plans to lengthen the maturity of the Fed’s bond portfolio and to keep the target federal funds rate near zero through at least mid-2013 as long as unemployment remains high and the inflation outlook remains “subdued.”

Bernanke and his colleagues on the panel cut their growth forecasts for 2012 and said unemployment will average 8.5 percent to 8.7 percent in the final three months of next year, up from a prior range of 7.8 percent to 8.2 percent.

“I’m dissatisfied with the state of the economy,” Bernanke said. “Unemployment is far too high,” and “I fully sympathize with the notion that the economy is not performing the way we would like.”

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