Why have mortgage interest rates been rising since the Fed cut rates in September?
A couple of economic data drops this week should give us some insight into the housing market: On Friday, we’ll learn how many new residential units were under construction in September, courtesy of the Census Bureau. And while that number picked up in August, the consensus of economists surveyed by Bloomberg is that the number we’ll get Friday will show a decline.
Meanwhile, Wednesday morning, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that the average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage actually increased for the third week in a row.
Which means that ever since one week after the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points, mortgage rates have been rising. And they’re now as high as they were about a month before the Fed cut rates.
The bad news about rising mortgage rates is a symptom of good news for the rest of the economy.
“If the economy continues to outperform expectations, then you’re likely to see rates come down more slowly,” said Gerald Cohen, chief economist at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
He said mortgage rates aren’t just based on what interest rates are now, but the expectation of what rates will be.
“You’ve seen kind of a pullback in expectations for the level of rate cuts, or the amount that the markets expect the Fed to cut rates,” he said.
And thing is, this 6%-7% mortgage rate might feel high, but once upon a time it was considered really good.
Mariya Letdin at Florida State University College of Business said rates had been relatively low because of a recession, and then a global pandemic.
“So rates will not go to 3% unless there’s something horrible that happens, and hopefully it doesn’t. So I think the expectation with how far they’re going to go down needs to be adjusted,” she said.
Letdin said those low rates also inflated housing prices. So now that the rates are higher?
“I think it’s more likely that house prices will come down,” she said. “So affordability should improve.”
That’s kind of mixed-bag news for homebuyers. But the advice from senior economist Ralph McLaughlin at realtor.com is pretty clear: If you can buy the home, buy the home.
“The benefits of homeownership don’t come from timing the rates market very well. It comes from staying put in that home,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said it’s always possible to refinance when interest rates come down again.
“We haven’t had this many homes in the market in many, many years. So for those maybe that felt stymied not just by prices and high mortgage rates, but by lack of choice, that that latter part is kind of reversed,” he said.
McLaughlin also said in the fall and winter, there are usually more price cuts as sellers get desperate, so buyers have more negotiating power.