An 'open house' flag is displayed outside a single-family home on September 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Getty Images)
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose again this week, bad news for Americans seeking to upgrade or buy their first home.
The average rate on the 30-year home mortgage rate ticked up to 6.90% this week from 6.81% a week ago. A year ago, the benchmark home loan rate stood at 4.99%, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
The average rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with those refinancing their homes, climbed to 6.25% from 6.11% last week. A year ago, it was 4.26%.
High rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting how much they can afford in a market already overpriced for many Americans.
High inflation has driven the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate 11 times since March 2022. Its fed funds rate has hit the highest level in 22 years.
Inflation has come down steadily since last summer, and many analysts believe the Fed has reached the end of its rate hikes.
Mortgage rates don’t necessarily mirror the Fed’s rate increases, but tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Investors’ expectations for future inflation, global demand for U.S. Treasurys and what the Fed does with interest rates can influence rates on home loans.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage remains more than double what it was two years ago, when ultra-low rates spurred a wave of home sales and refinancing. The far higher rates now are contributing to a dearth of available homes. Homeowners who locked in those lower borrowing costs two years ago are reluctant to sell and jump into a higher rate on a new property.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
