Mortgage rates are pushing even higher this week and are now clocking in at their highest level since the turn of the century.
As of Monday, the average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage had soared to 7.48%, more than double the average before the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates, according to Mortgage News Daily. The last time rates were this high was in November 2000.
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That marks a nearly half-percentage-point increase in just the past month alone, with a sizable chunk coming in the past week.
Bond yields have pushed higher recently as investors fear that the Fed might keep its interest rate target, which is now 5.25% to 5.50%, higher for longer.
Matthew Graham, the chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily, told CNBC that the Fed likely wants to see the rate hikes having some more profound effects on the economy before pivoting its monetary policy.
“Investors just aren’t seeing the kind of deterioration in economic data that they expected,” Graham said.
Mortgage rates have soared since the central bank started tightening its monetary policy back in March of last year. During parts of 2020 and 2021, when the Fed cut its interest rate target to near-zero, homebuyers were able to lock in historically low mortgages at below 3%.
Median mortgage payments for a typical single-family home hovered at just over $1,000 per month in 2020, according to the National Association of Realtors. Presently, the median mortgage payment is at $2,234, representing a mammoth 116% increase in just a few years.
While most investors don’t expect the Fed to raise its rate target again at its next meeting in September, they do expect it to be months before the central bank pivots and starts cutting rates. However, some economists think that the Fed might end up conducting one more rate hike before the year is out.
Stephen O’Connor, a research professor of real estate at the George Washington University School of Business, told the Washington Examiner that notes from recent Fed meetings and indicators such as “core inflation” make him think another hike might be in store.
Inflation (as gauged by the consumer price index) is now running at 3.2%, although core inflation, which does not include volatile food and energy prices, rose to 4.7% in the year ending in July.
“Are they done raising those rates? I don’t think so,” O’Connor said. “I think [Fed Chairman Jerome] Powell is still very much concerned with core inflation, and even though a lot of the other metrics look good relative to the number of jobs, unemployment rate, things of that nature, there are other types of markers in the ether there that are raising concerns relative to wage inflation, things of that nature.”
All eyes are on Powell’s annual speech from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this week. The yearly economic conference is one of the most closely monitored ones in the world and brings together economists, academics, and government representatives, with the central focus being on the Fed chief’s address.
Last year, Powell delivered a hawkish speech in which he warned of economic “pain” and caused the stock market to tumble, given the hint of more rate hikes.
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This year, though, Powell is likely to strike a bit of a different tone. Inflation has meaningfully fallen since the 2022 address, and the labor market has remained shockingly resilient despite the predictions of economists.
Nevertheless, investors and Fed watchers will hang on Powell’s every word in an effort to glean whether the central bank is finished tightening or if there is another rate increase in the works.
