No Love for Homebuyers as Mortgage Rates Are Expected To Remain High
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Homebuyers aren’t receiving much love this Valentine’s Day.
Mortgage interest rates are expected to remain uncomfortably high as the housing market barrels toward the spring buying season. The culprit? Inflation.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to keep hiking its own rates to bring down inflation by cooling the economy. But inflation isn’t coming down without a fight. It was up 6.4% year over year in January, according to the government’s consumer price index released on Tuesday. While it was down from 6.5% in December, it didn’t fall as much as many investors had hoped.
That means the Fed is likely to keep raising its rates, which should lead mortgage rates, which are separate, to also go up.
“The market’s reaction to the CPI data has already had a negative impact on mortgage rates,” said Matt Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily. “The average mortgage lender is now offering the highest rates since late November.”
Mortgage rates climbed to 6.62% by Tuesday afternoon—up from a low of 5.99% at the start of the month, according to Mortgage News Daily. (Rates were for a 30-year fixed-rate loan on a median-priced home of $400,000 with 20% down.)
Even a small change like that can affect homebuyers, especially first-time buyers on a budget. It adds up to about $132 a month, or roughly $1,600 a year, tacked onto the average mortgage payment. Over the life of a 30-year loan, that is an extra $47,500.
The housing market had recently warmed up and bidding wars had returned after rates had fallen to the low 6% range at the start of the year, but that small rebound could now be imperiled as rates remain volatile.
“We’re going to see [mortgage rates] bump around the levels that they’re at,” says David Stevens, CEO of Mountain Lake Consulting, which provides consulting services to the mortgage industry.
As long as rates remain below 7%, buyers will return to the housing market, predicts mortgage lender Shmuel Shayowitz, president of Approved Funding in River Edge, NJ.
“With rates mid-6% and lower, we’ve gotten strong buyer demand,” he says. “People have adapted and are willing to move forward.”
However, home prices remain high and many buyers are no longer able to afford the homes they wanted due to those higher rates.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, doesn’t expect mortgage rates will top 7% like they did last year. Instead, he anticipates they will remain in the 6% to 6.5% range “for the remainder of the year.”
“The spring selling season is going to be a tough one,” he says. “Affordability is a problem.”
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