by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Demand for mortgages to purchase a home has plunged by nearly double the rate of sales of existing homes.
For the past four weeks, mortgage rates have stabilized at just over 6.7%, with the average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate ticking up to 6.71% in the latest week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association today.
The combination of what were normal-to-low mortgage rates in the pre-QE era before 2009 and the fantastical prices today, after the huge QE-fueled run-up in recent years, has whacked demand: Sales of existing homes plunged by 24% last year from 2019, and this year doesn’t look much better, with February having been the worst February since 2009.