That has driven a new buyer's monthly payment up by more than 50% in the first six months of 2022 by some estimates and has had a clear effect on home sales that had surged during the Covid-19 pandemic to the highest levels since the mid-2000s. The average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage climbed to nearly 6% in June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, up from about 3.3% at the start of the year, which has put home purchases out of reach for a growing number of prospective buyers. "The increase in both home prices and mortgage rates since the end of 2021 has pushed the monthly mortgage payment on a median priced home up by nearly $700, or 56%, pricing millions of buyers out of the market," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note following Wednesday's sales data.
Continue to full article