How Mortgage Interest Rates Effect Home Sales
Good Monday Morning!
Does a change in mortgage interest rates have an effect on home sales? You bet it does! Inflation in home prices over the past several years has made home ownership an impossibility for many would be home buyers. The high cost of homes was compensated for over the past years by record breaking low mortgage interest rates. When rates began to rise but home prices remained steady and even increased, the ability to purchase a home for many faded away. Even though mortgage rates are higher than they were even a year ago, they have dropped from their peak in the Fall of 2023. Even a 1% rate decrease has spurred interest and made home payments more affordable. The question we have is whether rates will decline further, hold steady, or maybe even rise again. The answer here depends on what happens with our national economy. Mortgage rates need to decline further to heat up our economy again, but this could bring back high inflation rates. Higher inflation rates could put the brakes on any further mortgage interest rate decreases. It's going to be interesting! Stay tuned! The following is an article from "Realtor.com" that talks about the present housing market.
The numbers: U.S. pending home sales shot up in December as falling mortgage rates brought buyers back into the market.
Pending home sales rose 8.3% in December from the previous month, according to the monthly index released Friday by the National Association of Realtors.
Pending home sales reflect transactions where the contract has been signed for a the sale of an existing home, but the sale has not yet closed. Economists view it as an indicator of the direction of existing-home sales in subsequent months.
The jump in pending-home sales was the largest since June 2020, when it rose by 14.9%.
The sales pace exceeded expectations on Wall Street. Economists were expecting pending home sales to increase by 2% in December.
Transactions were up 1.3% from last year.
The NAR also released an updated forecast for existing-home sales on Friday. The group expects existing-home sales to increase in 2024 by 13% from last year, to a 4.62 million pace.
They expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates four times in 2024 and the 30-year mortgage to “bounce along” in the 6% to 7% range for most of the year.
Big picture: The increases in contract signings and in mortgage applications, reported earlier in the week, indicate that there is pent-up demand from buyers who are motivated by falling mortgage rates.
But the housing market’s recovery is still limited by supply. Unless the so-called lock-in effect fades and more homeowners decide to sell their homes, sales will not be able to increase significantly.
What the realtors said: “The housing market is off to a good start this year, as consumers benefit from falling mortgage rates and stable home prices,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the NAR, said in a statement.
“Job additions and income growth will further help with housing affordability, but increased supply will be essential to satisfying all potential demand,” he added.
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