Mortgage rates inched slightly lower this week, marking the fifth straight week of declines.
For the week ending April 13, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.27%, down from 6.28% in the prior week, Freddie Mac announced on Thursday. That’s still substantially higher than a year ago, though, when they averaged 5%.
But that might change over the coming months, thanks to a government report out Wednesday showing that overall inflation had dropped a bit in March.
“Calmer inflation means lower mortgage rates, eventually,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors®, said in a release responding to the inflation report.
Furthermore, he predicts the news will get even better in the coming months: “Mortgage rates slipping down to under 6% looks very likely toward the year’s end.”
We’ll explore what this all means for buyers and sellers in this installment of “How’s the Housing Market This Week?”