Sales of existing homes fell 17.8% in 2022, marking the weakest sales performance since 2014 as interest rates climbed. Interest rates rose quickly last year, a factor that weighed on the residential real estate market. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.15% as of Jan. 19, down from 6.33% last week, but up from 3.56% a year ago, according to Freddie Mac.
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Mortgage Rates Drop for Fifth Straight Week, Still More than Double from Year Ago
Mortgage rates continued a slow but steady decline over the past week, suggesting a small but notable reversal from the meteoric rise they underwent over the past year.
Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates “averaged 6.31 percent as of December 15, 2022, down from last week when it averaged 6.33 percent,” Freddie Mac said in its weekly rate update on Thursday.
Fifteen-year rates, meanwhile, averaged 5.54%, down from 5.67% last week.
Read MoreU.S. 30-Year Fixed-Mortgage Rate over Six Percent for First Time Since 2008
Mortgage rates on Thursday climbed to a 14-year high, with the average 30-year-fixed rate rising above 6% for the first time since 2008.
Mortgage Bankers Association executive Joel Kan says the 6.01%, rate is “essentially double what it was a year ago.”
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