Editor’s Note: The Mortgage Mix is RISMedia’s weekly highlight reel of need-to-know mortgage-industry happenings. Watch for it each Friday afternoon.
- Mortgage rates keep going up. Per Mortgage News Daily, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate currently sits at 6.82%, while the 15-year fixed mortgage rate stands at 6.09%.
- The 6.82% rate is the highest 30-year fixed mortgage rate since 2002.
- In September 2021, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate sat at 3.408%. The year-over-year jump to 6.82% marks the highest mortgage rate increase since 1981.
- Speaking to The New York Times, Redfin agent Andrew Vallejo (based in Austin, Texas) notes that rising mortgage rates have hurt price appreciation even in a booming market such as his own.
- Cautious due to escalating rates, UK lenders such as Virgin Money, Halifax and Skipton Building Society have halted mortgage offers. It remains to be seen if U.S. lenders will make similar moves.
- The effects of high mortgage rates are being felt across the supply chain. For instance, the price of lumber has fallen to $413 per thousand board feet. This is a year-to-date decline of 64% and a 76% decline from a record high that was reached in May 2021.
- As Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said, the continued rise in mortgage rates is part of a “difficult correction” to the housing market; high mortgage rates are projected to bring down high home prices.
- Powell’s work seems to be succeeding. According to Odeta Kushi, chief economist of First American Financial Corporation, (via Yahoo Finance): “We’re finding that sellers aren’t selling, buyers have pulled back, and that’s resulting in a housing market that’s cooling quite a bit.”
