Boston Condos for Sale and Apartments for Rent
Housing Supply is getting worse, experts say
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Housing Supply is getting worse, experts say
Mortgage rates fell last week, but demand for home loans didn’t move higher as a result. Other aspects of today’s housing market are outweighing the benefit of lower mortgage rates right now, namely a lack of supply.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) decreased to 6.40% from 6.45%, with points falling to 0.59 from 0.62 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment. It had been over 7% just a month ago.
“Spring has arrived, but the housing market is missing the customary burst in listings and purchase activity that typically mark the season. After four weeks of increasing purchase application activity, volume declined a bit this week even with another small drop in mortgage rates,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s chief economist.
New listings were down 20% year over year in March, according to Realtor.com, and total inventory was about half of what it was in March 2019, pre-Covid pandemic.
“Although the mortgage rate for conforming balance loans declined by five basis points over the week to 6.40%, the mortgage rate for jumbo loans increased by nine basis points to 6.36%,” added Fratantoni. “While we have seen relative weakness at the high end of the housing market in recent months, the divergence in rates suggests that banks may be tightening credit in response to recent challenges, preserving balance sheet capacity as deposit balances have declined.”
