The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage edged higher for the third week in a row, though it remains close to its low point this year.<\/p>\n
The average long-term mortgage rate ticked up to 6.26% from 6.24% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.84%.<\/p>\n
Three weeks ago, the average rate was at 6.17%, its lowest level in more than a year.<\/p>\n
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also inched up this week. The rate averaged 5.54%, up from 5.49% last week. A year ago, it was 6.02%, Freddie Mac said.<\/p>\n
When mortgage rates rise they reduce homebuyers\u2019 purchasing power. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has been stuck above 6% since September 2022, the year mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s helped kept sales of previously occupied U.S. homes stuck at around a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023. Historically, sales have typically hovered around 5.2 million a year. <\/p>\n
While sales have been sluggish this year, they received a boost this fall as mortgage rates eased. The average rate on a 30-year home loan has stayed below 6.4% since early September. Last month, home sales accelerated to their fastest pace since February.<\/a><\/p>\n Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors<\/a>, from the Federal Reserve\u2019s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors\u2019 expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.<\/p>\n The 10-year yield was at 4.10% at midday Thursday. That\u2019s down slightly from from a week ago, but up from around 3.95% on Oct. 22.<\/p>\n Mortgage rates began declining this summer ahead of the Federal Reserve\u2019s decision<\/a> in September to cut its main interest rate for the first time in a year amid signs the labor market was slowing. The Fed lowered its key interest rate again last month<\/a>, although Fed Chair Jerome Powell cautioned that further rate cuts weren\u2019t guaranteed.<\/p>\n Wall Street traders have reduced their bets that the Fed will cut its main interest rate at its next meeting in December, now giving it a roughly 44% probability, according to data from CME Group. That\u2019s down from nearly 70% a couple of weeks ago, but better than the 30% chance before the release Thursday of the delayed September jobs report<\/a>.<\/p>\n The central bank doesn\u2019t set mortgage rates, and even when it cuts its short-term rates that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean rates on home loans will necessarily decline.<\/p>\n Last fall after the Fed cut its rate for the first time in more than four years, mortgage rates marched higher, eventually reaching just above 7% in January this year. At that time, the 10-year Treasury yield was climbing toward 5%.<\/p>\n Recent forecasts by economists at the National Association of Realtors and First American call for the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to drop to around 6% next year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage edged higher for the third week in a row, though…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,19779,109,101,8877,6498,12478,851,9399],"class_list":["post-305374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-cme-group","tag-economic-policy","tag-economy","tag-federal-reserve-system","tag-finance-business","tag-financialbusiness","tag-inc","tag-mortgages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305374","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=305374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}