The housing market remains robust despite a recent increase in mortgage rates. According to HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center, the average 30-year fixed rate for conventional loans increased to 7.48% from 7.26% the previous week and 6.54% a year ago, while the 15-year fixed rate also rose to 6.72% from 6.66% in the previous week.
Despite this, there has been an increase in the inventory of unsold homes on the market, as stated by Mike Simonsen, founder and president of Altos Research. However, one positive note about mortgage rates is that the spread between mortgage rates and the 10-year Treasury yield is narrowing, which is a good sign as stated by Mohtashami.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s announcement that there will be no rate cuts in the near future due to the strength of the U.S. economy has contributed to this rise in mortgage rates. However, demand for new homes saw an impressive increase of 8.8% from February to March, indicating that even with higher interest rates, people are still looking for new places to call home. There are currently 543,000 single-family homes on the market, a slight increase from last year and a decrease from two weeks ago when there were approximately 559,000 homes on the market according to Reuters data analysis reported by CNBC (https://www.cnbc