There is growing sentiment among industry professionals that interest rates have peaked.
There is growing sentiment among industry professionals that interest rates have peaked.
"The upcoming months should see a return of buyers, as mortgage rates appear to have already peaked and have been coming down since mid-November," NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said yesterday.
Yun's voice is not the only one thinking that rates have hit their high point.
“We probably have seen peak mortgage rates unless there is some other major shock to the economy,” Cris deRitis, deputy chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told TIME recently.
Long-term interest rates have doubled since the beginning of the year, however in recent weeks, they have begun to fall. And that continued on Thursday, as Freddie Mac reported that the rate for 30-year mortgages dropped for the fourth straight week to 6.49%.
“Mortgage rates continued to drop this week as optimism grows around the prospect that the Federal Reserve will slow its pace of rate hikes,” Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist Sam Khater said Thursday. “Even as rates decrease and house prices soften, economic uncertainty continues to limit homebuyer demand as we enter the last month of the year.”