Mortgage rates are plummeting this week after two cooler-than-expected inflation reports gave Wall Street hope that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are working their magic. For more than 20 months, Fed officials have rapidly hiked rates in an attempt to quash inflation, contributing to an affordability crisis within the housing market as the cost of borrowing to buy a home surged.
But with inflation fading and the labor market cooling, many economists now believe the Fed is set to cut interest rates in the coming months. The new outlook helped push the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate down to just 7.37% on Friday. That’s a big drop from the over 8% rate just a month ago. And real estate experts say consumers should expect mortgage rates to continue falling in 2024.
