🏠 Mortgage Rates Soar

🏠 Mortgage rates soar

Data: Freddie Mac. Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios

Mortgage rates passed 6% for the first time since 2008, as an inflation-throttled economy squeezes homeowners and leaves potential buyers with few affordable options, Axios managing editor Javier E. David writes.

Why it matters: There’s little relief in sight for renter or homeowner sticker shock. Inflation has put the Fed on the path to higher interest rates, even as the economy loses momentum.

🧠 What’s happening: Rates are surging and home prices have fallen — but not enough for would-be homeowners to jump into a market that seems to have mostly downside.

🕶️ What we’re watching: Eventually — but certainly not any time soon — the Fed will be able to declare its mission against inflation accomplished, even at the cost of forcing the economy into an outright recession.

That will nudge down mortgage rates, Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage, tells Axios by email.
But rates probably “won’t go back to 3% — we would need another unwanted global crisis for that to happen.”

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