{"id":247184,"date":"2025-10-23T23:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T23:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/247184\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T23:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T23:02:07","slug":"how-record-high-national-debt-impacts-mortgage-rates-and-the-housing-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/247184\/","title":{"rendered":"How record-high national debt impacts mortgage rates and the housing market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The ongoing government shutdown is hindering the economy in numerous ways. Among the most notable: The nation’s debt is ballooning. The Treasury Department reported on Thursday that the national debt<\/a> has exceeded $38 trillion \u2014 a previously unattained level of federal indebtedness. While that may seem like a problem outside the scope of your daily life, it could affect the housing market and mortgage rates.<\/p>\n

While mortgage rates have been falling lately, if you’re still hoping for rates to drop drastically, the likelihood is fading fast.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going back to the world of 3% mortgage rates, pretty unlikely to get back to the world of 4% mortgage rates<\/a>,” Jeff Tucker, principal economist for Windermere Real Estate in Seattle, told Yahoo Finance in a phone interview. “So instead, we’re going to be in a world of higher interest rates for the medium- to long-term.”<\/p>\n

That’s because the increasing U.S. debt “will require a higher yield on the debt to keep financing it, to keep lending to the government essentially,” he said. “The most relevant consequence of the higher national debt for the housing market, in particular, is higher borrowing costs in the medium- to long-term.”<\/p>\n

While 10-year Treasury yields<\/a> had been near 4% recently, more than one housing market observer believes that Treasury and mortgage rates may already be bottoming out.<\/p>\n

The 10-year Treasury is a daily marker for mortgage rates. They generally move in unison with a spread of two percentage points or more between them. For example, if the 10-year yield is at 4%, mortgage rates are near or slightly above 6% as is currently the case.<\/p>\n

At the Mortgage Bankers Association\u2019s annual conference in Las Vegas on Monday, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted the bond market will “hit a wall” sometime in the coming years, and bond yields will begin to move much higher.<\/p>\n

Summers said the 10-year Treasury yield could jump 75 basis points within weeks of the bond market transition, and mortgage rates would rise by a full percentage point at the same time.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s probably the most likely consequence of the path we’re on,” he added.<\/p>\n

MBA chief economist Mike Fratantoni presented his latest economic forecast at the same meeting. He expected mortgage interest rates to remain in the 6% to 6.5% range through the end of 2028.<\/p>\n

“As we move over the next couple of years, we think it’s more likely that [long-term] rates are going to go up rather than down, given the fiscal pressures on the economy,” Fratantoni said.<\/p>\n

The national debt is an issue that could affect the housing market and mortgage rates for decades.<\/p>\n

An analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale reported that the increasing national debt will move the 10-year Treasury yield 1.4 percentage points higher by 2054. With the traditional spread in Treasury yields and mortgage rates of about 2 percentage points, that could mean home loan rates close to 7.5%.<\/p>\n

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank, believes the rapidly rising national debt is “bad news for renters, homeowners, and developers alike.”<\/p>\n

“Debt-driven high interest rates can lead to inflation<\/a>, which may cause developers to scrap their blueprints and contribute to housing scarcity. It also means that families are left with fewer choices and higher mortgages,” BPC wrote in a June report.<\/p>\n

Windermere’s Tucker said the housing market will need to adjust to a new reality.<\/p>\n

“Nobody should be buying a home, counting on a plan to refinance down their interest rate by two points in a few years because there’s really no guarantee that will happen, and in fact, it looks unlikely that will be available,” he said. “Mortgage borrowers should come to terms with being in a world of higher interest rates.”<\/p>\n

If you’re looking to buy a house, maximize your creditworthiness to earn the lowest home loan interest rate you can. Shopping with multiple mortgage lenders<\/a> can also improve your mortgage rate by a half point or more, according to a new report from Realtor.com.<\/p>\n

For homeowners sitting on a large amount of home equity, a refinance might not be the best option if you already have a low mortgage rate. However, a home equity line of credit<\/a> can let you tap that value \u2014 and HELOC rates have been falling recently.<\/p>\n

Laura Grace Tarpley<\/a> edited this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ongoing government shutdown is hindering the economy in numerous ways. Among the most notable: The nation’s debt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[18280,28,101,5456,9007,135058,105406,15940,5412,2928,49504,55932],"class_list":{"0":"post-247184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bond-market","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-housing-market","12":"tag-interest-rates","13":"tag-jeff-tucker","14":"tag-mortgage-lenders","15":"tag-mortgage-rate","16":"tag-mortgage-rates","17":"tag-national-debt","18":"tag-percentage-points","19":"tag-treasury-department"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}