Rafael Corrales, a real estate agent in Miami, recently showed houses to a young couple hoping to move from a rental into a home. They had been lured to the market after hearing that mortgage rates had come down.
But when the couple went to get approved for a home loan, they found that the borrowing costs had ticked up once again.
“They were very confused,” said Mr. Corrales, 49, an agent for Redfin. It pushed them back onto the sidelines of the housing market, and they’re now staying put in the hope that rates will fall again.
Mortgage rates fell steadily from this spring through September, as economic data slowed and as investors began to expect a steady string of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. But the rate on a 30-year mortgage has reversed course and climbed sharply over the past month to 6.79 percent nationally, from about 6.1 percent at the start of October.
U.S. average 30-year fixed-rate mortgageSource: Freddie Mac
By The New York Times
The move has come as a shock to some home buyers, who had waited many months for Fed officials to begin lowering borrowing costs, hoping that they would bring relief to the mortgage market.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.7bet gaming or sevenbet