Homebuyers perk up as mortgage rates hit their lowest level in 2 months.
“U.S. bond yields continued to move lower as incoming data signaled a softer economy and more signs of cooling inflation,” MBA Deputy Chief Economist Joel Kan said in a statement. “Most mortgage rates in our survey decreased, with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate decreasing to 7.41 percent, the lowest rate in two months. Mortgage applications increased to their highest level in six weeks, but remain at very low levels.”
Mortgage rates registered their biggest one-day drop in nearly four years on Nov. 14 after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell to 3.2 percent in October, down from 3.7 percent in September.
Yields on 10-year Treasury notes, a barometer for mortgage rates, trended up slightly on Tuesday after publication of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s Nov. 1 meeting. The minutes suggested that while Fed policymakers may be done raising rates, they are in no hurry to bring them back down.
Mortgage rates continue to retreat from peaks.
Mortgage rates continued to trend down this week, with 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaging 7.28 percent Tuesday, a 55 basis-point drop from a 2023 peak of 7.83 percent on Oct. 25, according to daily rate lock data tracked by Optimal Blue.
The latest jobless claims report from the Labor Department, which showed initial claims for unemployment dropping by 24,000 last week, to 209,000, was also putting pressure on 10-year Treasury yields Wednesday.
The CME FedWatch Tool, which tracks futures markets to predict the odds of the Fed’s next move, showed investors saw only a 5 percent chance on Wednesday that the central bank will hike rates again at its final meeting of the year on Dec. 13. But that’s up from 0 percent on Tuesday.
“The steep drop in jobless claims contrasts with the accelerating uptrend of recent weeks, with claims hitting a 12-week high a week prior,” Pantheon Macroeconomics Senior U.S. Economist Kieran Clancy said in a note to clients Wednesday. “One undershoot is not enough to determine if the rising trend in claims is starting to flatten. That said, leading indicators suggest claims will level off again soon. Layoff announcements and WARN notices—the best near-term leading indicators of jobless claims—have risen from their summer lows but aren’t clearly trending higher.”
The average loan request on purchase applications was $403,600, the lowest since January 2023, Kan said, “consistent with other sources of home sales data showing a gradually increasing first-time homebuyer share.”
Existing-home sales fell 4.1 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.79 million, the lowest month for sales since August 2010, according to data released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors.
According to NAR, first-time buyers accounted for 28 percent of October sales, up from 27 percent in September but unchanged from a year ago.
