Advertisement
New Zealand markets closed
  • NZX 50

    12,105.29
    +94.63 (+0.79%)
     
  • NZD/USD

    0.5973
    -0.0033 (-0.54%)
     
  • ALL ORDS

    8,153.70
    +80.10 (+0.99%)
     
  • OIL

    81.84
    +0.49 (+0.60%)
     
  • GOLD

    2,212.00
    -0.70 (-0.03%)
     

Housing: Mortgage rates dip to 6.66%

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss the decline in mortgage rates and state of the housing market.

Video transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Julie, over to you with some breaking news on a market you follow very closely. That is mortgage rates.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, now I do, like everyone. 6.66%, 6.66% is now the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage, according to Freddie Mac. That information just coming out. It is a very, very slight improvement over the 6.7% that we talked about last week. As Freddie Mac's chief economist points out, rates remain quite high compared to just one year ago, meaning housing continues to be more expensive for potential home buyers.

ADVERTISEMENT

This is something that we have talked a lot about. The real world implications of having these higher mortgage rates that are more than double where they were a year ago, that people are just going to pay a lot more over the life of the mortgage. It also means, by the way, that housing prices are starting to come down as a result.

Because if someone is paying overall more for financing the house, then what's got to give? In many cases, it's the home prices. And the demand that we have seen also has been falling to some extent.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, it continues to be more expensive for potential home buyers here. Freddie Mac also noting that they're going to make some enhancements to their market survey, really improving and looking at some of the collection quality diversity of data used. It seems like kind of mirroring what we had seen from ADP earlier this year over the summer. This is a time to really get a better sense of how accurate the data still is. And still, as of right now for some of these rates, it does still point to what we all expected and still some homebuyers are experiencing is the higher rates that they're having to pay for an extended period of time, which is kind of [INAUDIBLE].

BRIAN SOZZI: And it's just the average. If your credit isn't up to snuff, you're paying way more than this. Maybe last year at this point if your credit wasn't good, what, maybe you pay 5% or 6%. Now what are you, 8, 9, 10?

JULIE HYMAN: One thing to point out is people do refinance their mortgages, right? So if rates do-- if you buy a house at this rate and then rates go down, then you can-- many people can then refinance. So that is one little--

BRIAN SOZZI: Appreciate the silver lining.

JULIE HYMAN: --more positive tone here.