Market Data Suggests Housing Sector’s Downturn ‘Coming to an End’
Continuing its trend downward, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate dropped for the fourth straight week in a row to 6.28%. Things are looking up as pending home sales increased in all regions excluding the West, homebuilder confidence rose for the third straight month and housing starts, and existing and new home sales are also on the rise.
According to Yahoo! Finance, “mortgage rates no longer are rising, but they likely will remain elevated for some time,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a recent note to clients. “That leaves [home] prices to do the heavy lifting if affordability is to improve; prices have fallen by about 5% since the summer, but we look for a further 15% decline over the next year, restoring the pre-Covid price-to-income ratio.”
