Rates for home loans have ticked down fractionally, remaining stuck in a narrow range that isn’t helping – or hurting – the housing market.
In the week ending March 27, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.65%, Freddie Mac announced Thursday. That’s down from 6.67% last week, which was up from 6.65% the week before.
Those figures don’t include fees or points, and rates in some parts of the country may be higher or lower than the national average.
Even as mortgage rates tread water, Americans are still trying to buy homes. In the most recent week, applications for mortgages to purchase a home, not refinance, were at the highest point in almost two months, according to the weekly tracker from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Home contract signings were also 2% higher in February, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday.
“Despite the modest monthly increase, contract signings remain well below normal historical levels,” the association's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said in a news release. “A meaningful decline in mortgage rates would help both demand and supply – demand by boosting affordability, and supply by lessening the power of the mortgage rate lock-in effect.”
The Realtors group forecasts mortgage rates will average 6.4% in 2025 – a small decline, but hardly a meaningful one.
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It’s a positive for the housing market that many Americans continue to see the value of homeownership. Richard and Jessica Hamm, 34- and 28-year-old parents of three in the metro Oklahoma City area, had been renting a house, but in February they were able to close on a purchase with the help of a local homeownership counseling agency.
It helped that the fierce competition of the previous years had abated, Richard told USA TODAY: The home they bought was the first one they saw. It boasts 1,300 square feet, three bedrooms and two baths. “Of all the houses we were seeing it was our favorite,” he said. “It has a backyard and front yard and a little concrete patio in the back. And a shed in the back to hold my lawn mower.”
The counseling provided by Neighborhood Housing Services also came in handy. The agency helped the family with a down payment, but Hamm also appreciated the homeowner prep classes they took, calling them “eye-opening.”
“It’s really a forever house,” Hamm said. “For a lot of people their first home isn’t their forever home. We wanted a home that we could really make ours. We wanted a house that we could call our own.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mortgage rates won't budge. Americans are still aiming for ownership.