The housing search is easing, but a prolonged trade war could derail progress
Housing's yearslong winter might be showing the first hints of thaw, according to new data from the NBC News Home Buyer Index.
Buyer difficulty is easing, owing to improving supply and less competition. However, prices remain high, and experts say any improvement could ride on policy decisions — tariffs and trade wars chief among them.
The Home Buyer Index is a scale from 0 to 100 that measures the difficulty a buyer would have trying to purchase a house in a given month. The February index value came in at 80.1 — down from pandemic highs in the upper 80s, but still a figure that represents extreme difficulty.
higher than expected starts. And mortgage rates are declining slightly, especially those benefiting first-time buyers using Federal Housing Administration loans.
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NBC News
27-03-2025
- NBC News
The housing search is easing, but a prolonged trade war could derail progress
Housing's yearslong winter might be showing the first hints of thaw, according to new data from the NBC News Home Buyer Index. Buyer difficulty is easing, owing to improving supply and less competition. However, prices remain high, and experts say any improvement could ride on policy decisions — tariffs and trade wars chief among them. The Home Buyer Index is a scale from 0 to 100 that measures the difficulty a buyer would have trying to purchase a house in a given month. The February index value came in at 80.1 — down from pandemic highs in the upper 80s, but still a figure that represents extreme difficulty. higher than expected starts. And mortgage rates are declining slightly, especially those benefiting first-time buyers using Federal Housing Administration loans.
NBC News
21-02-2025
- NBC News
The housing market's long winter faces a slow thaw and many unknowns
A slew of new data shows that the housing market remains largely frozen at the start of the year, posing steep challenges to President Donald Trump's promise to thaw it. Sales of existing homes fell 4.9% from December to January, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday, a steeper drop than expected. Though the rate improved 2% last month on an annual basis, the sales pace continues to hover around 15-year lows. The situation isn't much rosier for new builds: Construction permits declined 1.7% in January from 12 months earlier, while housing starts were mostly flat, federal data showed Wednesday. And homebuilders' confidence slipped to a five-month low this month, the National Association of Home Builders' latest survey found. It's been a very unusual start to 2025. A lot of buyers and sellers were thinking this was going to be their year. Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist, Bright MLS Meanwhile, homebuying remained very difficult at the end of 2024, driven by economic instability, rising costs and shortages of homes on the market, according to NBC News' Home Buyer Index, which measures the challenges potential buyers face county by county. The current outlook reflects the collision of long-running trends — tight, if improving, inventories; steep prices; high interest rates — with fresh uncertainties posed by Trump's economic agenda, including tariffs and mass deportations that threaten to drive up costs. 'It's been a very unusual start to 2025. A lot of buyers and sellers were thinking this was going to be their year,' said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS housing group. Instead, she said, many listings are staying on the market longer as buyers wait for stubborn mortgage rates to fall. 'It's going to be a slower spring than we hoped it would be,' Sturtevant predicted. On the campaign trail, Trump promised mass deportations of undocumented people to free up existing properties, deregulation to spur more development and tax incentives to help first-time home buyers. He also pledged to slash mortgage rates 'very fast.' 'We will drive down the rates so you will be able to pay 2% again and we will be able to finance or refinance your homes drastically at much lower costs,' Trump told Arizona rallygoers in September, estimating he would save families in the state $800 to $1,000 in monthly mortgage payments. But nationwide, rates for 30-year fixed mortgages — the most popular type — have hovered from 6% to 8% for the last two years, and demand for mortgage applications recently fell to its lowest level in six months.
NBC News
13-11-2024
- NBC News
Mortgage demand stalls as financial markets digest Trump presidency
Mortgage rates continued to climb last week as investors considered the future of the economy under a Trump presidency. The mortgage market basically took a breather. Total application volume was essentially flat, rising just 0.5% last week, compared with the previous one, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's seasonally adjusted index. While tiny, the increase marked the first rise in overall demand in seven weeks. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances of $766,550 or less increased to 6.86% from 6.81%, with points decreasing to 0.60 from 0.68, including the origination fee, for loans with a 20% down payment. 'Mortgage rates continued to increase last week, driven by higher Treasury yields as financial markets digested the likely impacts of a Trump presidency,' said Joel Kan, the Mortgage Bankers Association's deputy chief economist. 'The Federal Reserve's 25-basis-point rate cut was already anticipated and did little to move the markets.' Applications to refinance a home loan, which are most sensitive to weekly moves in interest rates, fell 2% for the week to the lowest level since May. They were, however, 43% higher than the same week one year ago. Last year at that time, mortgage rates were 75 basis points higher. Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home rose 2% for the week and were 1% higher than the same week one year ago. Homebuyers may be looking at lower rates than last year, but they are also seeing higher home prices. Meanwhile, the supply of homes for sale remains lean. Kan noted that applications for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs helped drive stronger purchase activity, increasing 3% and 9%, respectively. 'FHA mortgage rates bucked the overall trend and were lower over the week, which likely helped some borrowers,' Kan said. 'Conventional purchase applications were also up slightly.' Mortgage rates moved higher this Tuesday; the bond market was closed Monday for the Veterans Day holiday. 'The market continues to work through election-related volatility,' wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. 'That involves a complex set of considerations. Some of them have to do with actual expectations for changes in fiscal policy in the coming years. Some of the considerations are as simple as traders going through the process of exiting (and re-setting) trading positions heading into the election.'
