Rising mortgage rates have taken both buyers and sellers on an emotional roller coaster this year. In early January, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.45%, according to Mortgage News Daily, and trended upward throughout the course of the year, peaking at 8.03% in mid-October.
Even though some economists and housing market experts at the time predicted that 8% mortgage rates were here to stay, the market has shown otherwise. Today, average mortgage rates stand at 7.07%, Mortgage News Daily data shows. The drop in rates hasn’t only benefited buyers and sellers, but mortgage brokers, too.
This trend has “sparked a modest uptick in mortgage applications for home purchase in November,” according to a Capital Economics report released Thursday. What’s more, the London-based research firm, known for its housing market forecasting, predicts a continued drop in mortgage rates based on its analysis of U.S. Treasury bonds.
“Recent falls in Treasury yields mean further falls in mortgage rates are imminent, so the trough in mortgage demand is now behind us,” Thomas Ryan, U.S. property economist for Capital Economics, wrote in the report. “Looking ahead, we think that it’s now extremely likely we’ve seen the peak in mortgage rates and anticipate a steady decline over the next two years.”
Mortgage rate outlook
But don’t get too excited. In October, Capital Economics’ mortgage rate forecast showed that they don’t expect mortgage rates to fall below 6% until the end of 2025, and that remains the firm’s outlook in the Dec. 6 report.
Even a drop from 8% to 6% within the next two years won’t make enough difference for many buyers—let alone sellers who still want to hold on to the sub-4% rates they snagged during the pandemic era. Rates at 6% “will still be too high to spark a major boom in mortgage demand back to 2010s levels when mortgage rates averaged 4.1%,” Ryan wrote in the report.
Capital Economics holds that we’re in “an era of structurally higher mortgage rates,” Ryan tells Fortune, which “begs the question why anybody sitting on a home with a 4% mortgage rate would ever choose to refinance and accept materially higher monthly mortgage payments.”
Ryan has good company, as realtors are also cautioning against a drop in mortgage rates during the next couple of years. Michael Vestuto, a Las Vegas realtor with two decades of experience, tells Fortune it’s too soon to start celebrating lower mortgage rates and improved mortgage applications—especially since many housing market forecasts that predicted falling rates in 2022 and 2023 were “quite off the mark” and mortgage rates continued to climb.
“We need to see sustained positive progress over a longer period, at least a quarter, rather than just a few weeks or a month before we can confidently say that high mortgage rates are behind us,” he says. “While I am hopeful that the worst is behind us, the economy has shown a high degree of unpredictability in the last 18 months, so a cautious outlook is prudent at this stage.”
Mortgage applications tick up
While mortgage rates are declining more slowly than prospective homebuyers may want, there has still been modest recovery in terms of the number of mortgage applications. Mortgage applications increased 0.3% week over week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ended Nov. 24.
“The steady decline in mortgage rates over the past month has fueled an uptick in mortgage demand,” MBA president and CEO Bob Broeksmit said in a statement. “Although application activity remains below year-ago levels, applications have increased for four consecutive weeks.”
Capital Economics predicts this trend will continue.
“Mortgage applications fell to a 28-year low in October, driven lower by the 8% high in mortgage rates,” Ryan tells Fortune. “As rates fall, affordability improves, and fewer buyers are put off applying for a mortgage. That means we’ll see a gradual recovery in mortgage [applications] over the next few years, in lockstep with mortgage rates falling.”
Aaron Gordon, a senior mortgage loan officer with more than 20 years of experience, is even more optimistic. He anticipates that the lock-in effect of high mortgage rates holding people in place will start to wane as aging baby boomers move into retirement communities or assisted living facilities—a phenomenon sometimes called the “silver tsunami.” Add to that high renovation costs, which Gordon says are also pushing more homeowners to think about moving. Interest rates on home equity lines are up to 9% or more, which is discouraging people from making major home improvements.
Put otherwise, the people who locked in 3% or 4% rates during the pandemic are the same people who are now getting tired of where they’re living. Especially since many of them have benefited from rising home values, they’ll eventually give in to the comparatively higher mortgage rates, Gordon, a branch manager with Guild Mortgage, tells Fortune.
“Many of those folks will decide to take their huge profits, sell, and buy something else,” he says. “Those buyers will ignore higher rates with a plan to refinance when they eventually come down. Higher supply, higher demand, [and] lower rates will mean more mortgage applications.”
