SPY - Mortgage Rates Fall: But Could Fed Pushback On March Rate Cut Dent Homeowner Hopes? | Benzinga
Mortgage rates moved lower again last week, after rising in three of the previous four weeks.
This will come as a welcome relief to the hundreds of thousands of homeowners and loan applicants, who followed Wednesday’s Federal Reserve outcome with trepidation.
Mortgage rates are highly influenced by the Federal Reserve’s Fed funds rate. Indeed, all kinds of rates and indexes are linked to the base rate — from bank lending and savings rates to credit cards.
The Fed funds rate peaked in July last year at 5.25%-5.5% and roughly three months later, the average 30-year mortgage peaked at 7.79%, according to data from mortgage services broker Freddie Mac.
But while the Fed hasn’t moved on its main interest rate since July, the mortgage rate, since the October high, has fallen to 6.63% as of last week on expectations the Fed will soon start to cut rates.