Mortgage rates continue to fall house lineOn Tuesday, the Mortgage Rate Center showed the average 30-year fixed rate on conforming loans was 7.34%, down from 7.43% a week ago.
At the same time a year ago, the 30-year average interest rate was 6.66%. Meanwhile, the 15-year uniform fixed rate averaged 6.71% on Tuesday, down from 6.77% a week ago.
“Mortgage rates and labor data are starting to get more intense as the bond market tries to get ahead of the Fed’s turn,” said Logan Mohtashami, principal analyst at HousingWire. “So if the labor data weakens, the bond market and mortgage rates will lower. That means the work week of each month is becoming increasingly important as labor data has been weak for several months but has yet to break through. The weekly jobless benefits data, which the Fed discussed at the meeting, is also important.
As of May 17, there were 578,000 unsold single-family homes on the market, up 1.7% for the week and 36% higher than this time last year. altos research corp..
In addition, price cuts have been intensifying across the country, with 34.4% of the houses on the market having price cuts last week, an increase of 70 basis points from the previous week. This time last year, 29.9% of homes on the market had seen price reductions.
“Inventory remains very limited in many areas of the country, with only a little more than during the pandemic. In these places, like much of the Northeast, supply is tight and affordable homes are selling immediately,” said Altos Research founder and president Mike Simonsen wrote Monday.
“It’s important to keep that in mind this year. It helps us see that, nationally, we’re not in a housing price collapse. The market is moderating overall as supply is constrained in many places.”
As of this week, every state has more inventories than a year ago. Even New York and Nevada, the last holdouts in terms of inventory, are now in positive territory.
“Inventory is growing everywhere and will continue to grow as long as mortgage rates remain high,” Simonson said in a statement.
