{"id":18677,"date":"2021-03-30T13:01:06","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T13:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anthonydidonato.net\/wordpress\/?p=18677"},"modified":"2021-03-30T13:01:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T13:01:06","slug":"rate-pressures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anthonydidonato.net\/wordpress\/rate-pressures\/","title":{"rendered":"Rate Pressures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rate Pressures<\/h1>\n
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Home buyers may feel even more of a rush to lock in mortgage rates trying to get ahead of any further increases. Over the last month, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has moved above its sub-3% ultra-low averages to jumping this week to a 3.17% average.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the course of the pandemic, \u2018home\u2019 has become more important than ever,\u201d says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac\u2019s chief economist. \u201cAs a result, strong purchase demand continues\u2014but buyers also outnumber the sellers. Since January, mortgage rates have increased half a percentage point from historic lows and home prices have risen, leaving potential homebuyers with less purchasing power. Unfortunately, this has disproportionately affected the low end of the market, where supply is the slimmest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this week\u2019s increase, rates still remain lower than a year earlier\u2014when the pandemic had first hit the country. Also, expect mortgage rates to remain low near 3.3% in 2021, Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of forecasting at the National Association of REALTORS\u00ae, writes for the association\u2019s Economists\u2019 Outlook blog.<\/p>\n

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending March 25:<\/p>\n