Mortgage rates fell this week for the first time since late August, easing some of the pressure on prospective homebuyers facing higher borrowing costs on home loans. <\/p>\n
The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 7.32% from 7.40% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.19%. <\/p>\n
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also eased this week. That average rate slipped to 6.68% from 6.71% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.44%. <\/p>\n
Rates on home loans are influenced by inflation, Federal Reserve policy and bond-market investors’ expectations for the economy, among other factors. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. <\/p>\n
Mortgage rates have been climbing since late February, when the U.S. war with Iran began<\/a>, pushing up the price of oil<\/a> and driving inflation higher<\/a>. The run-up in rates also reflects heightened bond market<\/a> volatility, which has pushed up yields on U.S. Treasurys. <\/p>\n The 10-year Treasury yield has been mostly easing the last couple of weeks after climbing to its highest level since 2002. That’s caused the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to hold steady after reaching 7.4%, its highest level in nearly three years. <\/p>\n The yield was at 5% at midday on the bond market Thursday. It surged to more than 5.30% earlier this month and remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran. <\/p>\n U.S. home sales remain stalled this year<\/a> in large part because of rising mortgage rates, which can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power and prompting many to put off buying a home. <\/p>\n In late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage briefly dipped to 5.98%, its lowest level going back to late 2022. The rise in rates since then has added roughly $355 to the monthly cost for a borrower financing a $400,000 home loan, going by the latest average rate. <\/p>\n Depending on a borrower’s income, credit and other factors, they may qualify for a rate on a 30-year mortgage that is below or above the current average. <\/p>\n The U.S. housing market has been in a slump<\/a> since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low.<\/a> <\/p>\n In its latest forecast, mortgage buyer Fannie Mae projects that the rate on a 30-year mortgage will average 7.4% in the final quarter of this year, and average 7.5% in 2027. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mortgage rates fell this week for the first time since late August, easing some of the pressure on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5097,28,122,101,939,2993,2994,32455,2995,932,32456,20112,147,9323,1170,1666,6480,2996,2997,923,19533,3733,32457],"class_list":["post-891156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-401k","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891156","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=891156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}