Mortgage rates dip two weeks in a row, refinancing demand up
Mortgage rates have experienced a notable dip, dropping about a quarter of a percent in the last two weeks. This marks the second consecutive week of declining mortgage rates, signaling a potential shift in the housing market.
Yahoo Finance Housing Reporter Dani Romero discusses how these rate movements could benefit homebuyers, while homebuilder Lennar (LEN) warns about customers' debt-to-income ratios.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith
Video Transcript
JOSH LIPTON: Some good news for homebuyers. Mortgage rates fallen for the second week in a row. Our own Dani Romero is here with the details. Dani.
DANI ROMERO: Good news. Rates have dropped to a quarter of a percent in the last two weeks. So this is really good news for rate sensitive buyers. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 6.74%. And that's obviously lower from the previous week, which was 6.8%.
But again, this also has sparked an opportunity for homeowners to refinance. And that's been good because they want to either lower their mortgage payment or lower some of their debts. So demand for refinancing has actually started to pick up in March.
So that really just signals that homeowners are really aware and paying attention to these rate movements that are happening in the market. But still, only a few are really benefiting from this drop in rates. 89% of homeowners still have a rate under 6% Redfin reported.
JULIE HYMAN: So they're not refinancing right now. The other big housing news that we got was Lennar reporting. And there, it wasn't quite as positive. We got we heard a warning actually from the company.
DANI ROMERO: Yes, Lennar CEO Stuart Miller says that affordability is still a major headwind for buyers looking into getting into the new home market. They say their customers have a really-- have a higher debt to income ratio. And remember, these homebuilders have been working with these customers to offer different incentives.
Some of those have been the mortgage rate buy downs. Other ways have been the home price reductions, which Lennar did. They cut its average sales price, a 8% drop from last year.
And some analysts have pointed to that that's one of the reasons why they had total revenue for the quarter was down for Lennar. Still, they still say that demand is really strong for housing.
JOSH LIPTON: All right, we'll keep watching. Dani, thank you so much.
