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.
- It’s a cold winter, or at least a cooler market, as mortgage rates saw a 15 bps increase from last week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®). This week, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.42%, up from 6.27%.
- Folks can expect another year of higher interest rates, according to minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December meeting. The meeting minutes confirm plans the central bank telegraphed last month as real estate economists broadly project rates will settle around 5% by the end of 2023.
- According to a new report from CoreLogic, the number of borrowers who were at least 30 days late on their mortgage payments dipped in October. The data shows that 8% of all mortgages in the U.S. were in some stage of delinquency, down 1% YoY.
- Rocket Mortgage launched a special-purpose credit program intended to increase accessibility to homeownership by offering first-time buyers up to $7,500 in credits to use toward their mortgage costs. Dubbed “Purchase Plus,” Rocket Mortgage CEO Bob Walters called the program a “catalyst that will help narrow the homeownership gap.”
- Mortgage applications decreased 13.2% from two weeks earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending Dec. 30, 2022. The results include adjustments to account for the holidays. The holiday-adjusted Refinance Index decreased 16.3% from two weeks ago and was 87% lower than the same week one year ago.
An increase in conforming loan limits by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) could be a boon for buyers in 2023 as a recent Zillow report suggests that more than 2 million homes across the country no longer need a jumbo loan, making them more financially accessible for consumers.
