Mortgage rates fall for fourth straight week as housing sector challenges persist
Yahoo Finance reporter Rebecca Chen breaks down the latest moves in mortgage rates and the housing market as the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate falls to 6.28%.
Video Transcript
DAVE BRIGGS: But we start with some housing numbers. Mortgage rates have been dropping for four straight weeks. Home buyers, though, still struggling with the housing market. Here to explain is Yahoo Finance housing reporter Rebecca Chen. Rebecca, nice to see you. So rates are falling how low?
REBECCA CHEN: So the average 30-year mortgage rate has fallen to 6.28% from 6.32%, but even though there is a dip in mortgage rate, homebuyers are still struggling with affordability issues. And this is because the rate drop is just not enough to offset the high housing costs. Many of the sellers that we are hearing is that they do not want to list their homes on the market right now. They have locked in a much lower rate at under 6%, and they don't want to sell their house and have to rebuy it into today's environment.
So what we are really seeing is a market gridlock between buyers and sellers because of the mortgage rates. A lot of the experts that we've spoken with, we asked them about, so what can we expect for this future year. And many of them just say it's hard to predict what will happen next in this volatile market. Because of job reports, inflation data, and the banking crisis, they really don't know what's going to go-- what's going to happen. But what many economists are seeing is that they believe rates will stay between 5.5% to 6.5% in this coming year. So we are expecting rates to hover around that in the meantime.
DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, there seems to be some rush to judgment that it's going to go right back to 3. We've seen rates take 10 years to reach a new level in terms of that 3. So it could be at 5 and 1/2 a year from now. Inventory remains the biggest issue out there in housing, and no quick fix for that. Rebecca, thank you. Good to see you.
