Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

Rising Mortgage Rates Might Finally Be Giving Homebuyers Reason to Ponder

  • July 26th 2018

by UrbanTurf Staff

Rising interest rates might finally be giving homeowners a reason to hit the pause button. 

Long-term mortgage rates came in at 4.54 percent with an average 0.5 point on Thursday, up from 3.92 percent a year ago. 

“The next few months will be key for gauging the health of the housing market,” Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater said in a release. “Existing sales appear to have peaked, sales of newly built homes are slowing and unsold inventory is rising for the first time in three years. Meanwhile, affordability pressures are increasingly a concern in many markets, as the combination of continuous price gains and higher mortgage rates appear to be giving more prospective buyers a pause.”

It's a little unclear if these factors are being felt in the DC region yet. In June, home prices in both the region and DC proper hit their highest level on record, but the number of pending home sales still came in above the 5- and 10-year averages. It will be interesting to see if the high prices and rising interest rates begin to affect the market in the months to come. 

See other articles related to: mortgage rates

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/rising-mortgage-rates-might-finally-be-giving-homebuyers-reason-to-ponder/14263.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Visit guides.urbanturf.com or start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse