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 continued their rise this week, edging closer to 8%, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.79%, while the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.03%. “For the seventh week in a row, mortgage rates continued to climb toward 8%, resulting in the longest consecutive rise since the spring of 2022,” said Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater.
- As mortgage rates rise, mortgage applications continue their historic fall, according to the latest Weekly Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Applications dropped 1% from the prior week, reaching their slowest weekly pace since 1995. “These higher mortgage rates are keeping prospective homebuyers out of the market and continue to suppress refinance activity,” said MBA Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist Joel Kan.
- The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has proposed guidelines for the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) for Purchase (H4P) program, as reported by National Mortgage Professional. These guidelines would allow an “interested party contribution” of up to 6% of the sales price to help align forward mortgages.
- Homebuyer affordability—judged via mortgage payments—improved slightly in September, according to MBA’s latest Purchase Applications Payment Index (PAPI). Overall payments decreased from $2,170 to $2,155, and payments saw decreases throughout the different mortgage categories as well.
