Data released on Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association found that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage popped to 6.94% in the week ended Oct. 14, the ninth straight increase. Mortgage rates, gauged by Mortgage News Daily, grew to 7.15% — nearly 4 percentage points higher than this time last year.
Mortgage applications have also declined for the past four months, plunging to the lowest level since 1997, according to MBA.The news is yet another sign that the housing sector is getting walloped by the Fed’s historic tightening cycle. Housing is perhaps the sector most responsive to interest rate hikes, as mortgages rise in tandem. House prices have stayed high, meaning that, combined with higher mortgage rates, housing affordability has dramatically declined.
As a result of rising mortgage rates, housing starts, which measure the annualized change in the number of new residential buildings that began construction, have also tumbled. Housing starts dropped at a seasonally adjusted 8.1% in September to 1.44 million, according to a report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday.
Biden is the problem. The Fed takes it out on the poor. tt;ByronYork