Mortgage rates continue to slide toward 7%  

Mortgage rates continued on their downward path as HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center showed the average 30-year fixed rate for conforming loans at 7.34% on Tuesday, below the rate of 7.43% one week ago. 

At the same time one year ago, the 30-year average rate was 6.66%. Meanwhile, the 15-year conforming fixed rate averaged 6.71% on Tuesday, down from 6.77% one week earlier.

“Mortgage rates and labor data are starting to get into a more heated dance as the bond market tries to get ahead of a Fed pivot,” HousingWire lead analyst Logan Mohtashami said. “So, if the labor data gets softer, the bond market and mortgage rates will head lower. This means that each month’s job week gets increasingly important as the labor data has been softer for months but hasn’t broken yet. The weekly jobless claims data, which the Fed has talked about at meetings, is critical as well.”

As of May 17, there were 578,000 single-family homes unsold on the market, up 1.7% for the week, and 36% more homes unsold than a year ago, according to Altos Research.   

Additionally, price cuts are on the rise nationally as 34.4% of the homes on the market last week included a price cut, up 70 basis points from the week prior. Last year at this time, 29.9% of the homes on the market had price cuts. 

“Many parts of the country still have very restricted inventory, just barely more than during the pandemic. In those places, like much of the northeast, supply is tight and well-priced homes are selling immediately,” Mike Simonsen, founder and president of Altos Research, wrote on Monday. 

“It’s really important to keep this in mind this year. It helps us see that nationally, we’re not barrelling toward a home price crash. The market overall is tempered with restricted supply in many places.”

As of this week, every state has more inventory than a year ago. Even New York and Nevada,  which were the last holdouts in terms of inventory, are now both in positive territory. 

“Inventory is growing everywhere and will continue to grow as long as mortgage rates stay elevated,” Simonsen said in a statement.