Mortgage rates are back near 6.5%. Will they stay there?

About a week after the Federal Reserve lowered benchmark interest rates for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, mortgage rates reached their low point for 2024.

The news has not been so positive since then for U.S. consumers or the housing industry.

According to HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center, the average 30-year conforming rate bottomed out at 6.24% on Sept. 27. That was the lowest figure since February 2023. But after muddling along for another week, rates rose again and stood at 6.49% on Wednesday. The average 15-year conforming rate jumped even more sharply during this time, going from 5.58% to 6.02%.

It’s not an unexpected turn of events. Mortgage industry experts said that last month’s Fed cut of 50 basis points (bps) was already baked into loan pricing. And with the economy remaining resilient as job creation exceeds expectations, lenders are betting that Fed policy will not loosen quickly in the final two months of the year.

According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, interest rate traders say there is a 94% chance of a 25-bps cut next month. They’re also giving 86% odds of an additional 25-bps cut in December. But two small cuts, if they materialize, would still leave the federal funds rate at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. And many market observers believe that is still far from the “neutral rate” needed to spur more demand for purchase loans and refinances.

Mortgage rates tend to move in tandem with Treasury yields, and HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami wrote last week that the 10-year yield has increased by 35 bps since the Fed’s decision to cut rates. This was the result of stronger-than-anticipated economic data, including a September jobs report that blew past expectations with 254,000 jobs created — well above the 12-month average.

“Mortgage rates had already reached the bottom of my 2024 forecast so the risk of rates going higher was a legitimate concern,” Mohtashami wrote. “As I have noted, once the 10-year yield gets below 3.80% we need to see weaker economic data for rates to drop and the opposite happened last week. This explains the rise in mortgage rates since the Fed cut rates.”

Some economic data supports the theory that the economy is cooling and could support lower interest rates. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for September showed seasonally unadjusted inflation of 2.4% over the past year, which was higher than forecasted. And weekly unemployment claims for the week ending Oct. 5 jumped to 258,000, their highest level in more than a year.

Higher borrowing costs are already showing up in mortgage application data. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday that applications took a 17% nosedive during the week ending Oct. 11. Refinances have been showing recent signs of life, but demand dropped by 26% during the week and the refi share of all applications fell below 50% for the first time in a month.

Melissa Cohn, regional vice president for William Raveis Mortgage, said that it’s not outside the realm of possibility for the Fed to stand pat in November with its current policy rate. For prospective homebuyers, she said, waiting may not be the best approach.

“You can’t just sit around and wait for rates to drop,” Cohn said in a statement. “You have buyers who say they’re waiting for rates to drop before they want to buy. Well, this is a wake-up call, saying that no, you better find a house you want to buy and then worry about rates secondly. […] You cannot wait for a rate that may never exist.”

Even with lower mortgage rates than a year ago, home-price appreciation continues to negatively impact affordability. Fannie Mae reported Tuesday that U.S. single-family home prices rose 5.9% during the year ending in third-quarter 2024. This was lower than the annualized growth rate of 6.4% in the second quarter, but the government-sponsored enterprise said that prospective buyers are likely weighing prices more heavily than interest rates or available inventory.  

“In fact, consumers have told as much: In September, high home prices supplanted high mortgage rates as the top reason for our survey respondents’ overwhelming pessimism toward homebuying conditions,” Fannie chief economist Mark Palim said in a statement. “Overall, the strength of this latest home price reading confirms the ongoing challenges with tight supply; however, the index’s continued deceleration shows that we’re slowly moving toward a better balance between supply and demand.”