The Home morgage market is a gonna for now….
Unless you ‘have to’ buy or the interest doesn’t matter?
You sit where you are ….
Or?
Rent….
Oh?
The Fed is expected to raise the base inside rates AGAIN next month….
Mortgage rates topped 7 percent this week, the highest level in 20 years — and the latest sign that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive moves to slow the broader economy are hitting the housing market hard already.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage, the most popular home-loan product, reached 7.08 percent, according to data released Thursday by Freddie Mac. The last time mortgage rates climbed so high was April 2002, and they are slated to keep climbing as the Fed moves swiftly to tame a red-hot housing market, a key step in lowering rent costs and ultimately quelling inflation in the broader economy.
The central bank doesn’t directly set mortgage costs, but changes in its policy rate — known as the federal funds rate — ripple through the economy and influence all kinds of lending. Since March, the Fed has raised rates five times, bringing its benchmark rate from near zero to between 3 percent and 3.25 percent. The central bank is expected to raise rates by another 0.75 percentage points next week.
Those moves have already triggered major consequences for the housing market, and the spike in mortgage rates has prompted some broader concerns that the Fed is pumping the brakes on the economy with far too much force….
…
For much of the pandemic, low rates meant aspiring home buyers flooded into the market, competed for the few homes available and sent prices soaring. But now, wary of shelling out hundreds of dollars more per month on a mortgage, buyers are bowing out, boosting the supply of available homes and helping prices go down overall. This year, when rates were below 4 percent, a family earning the median household income of $71,000 could afford a $448,700 home with a 20 percent down payment. This week, with rates around 7 percent, they could only afford a $339,200 home, according to Realtor.com….
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“We can only deal with what we’re dealing with now. I can’t see that mortgage rates are going to go to 10 [percent]. If they did, then that would feel like a recession,” [ Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nutshell Realty. ] Basten said. “Eight [percent] feels bad. Ten percent would be like, ‘Wow, where we do go from here?’ ”…