Weekly Mortgage Rates Dip, Home Price Gains Soften

This article was first published on NerdWallet.com.

Average mortgage rates ebbed this week — a welcome change, but not enough to give home buyers much relief.

The average rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.89% in the week ending June 6, according to rates provided to NerdWallet by Zillow. It was a decrease of 13 basis points from the previous week. (A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.)

The drop brings the 30-year fixed rate to about where it was two weeks ago and slightly under May's monthly average of 7.01%.

Home prices may cool off

National home sale prices rose 5.3% year over year in April and were up 1.1% from the prior month, CoreLogic, a global property analytics company, reported this week.

Any price increase is tough on home buyers, but the recent gains are softer than the year-over-year price jumps in the last few years. CoreLogic projects home price growth to slow to 3.4% by next spring.

The price softening reflects buyers' response to high mortgage rates and anticipation that rates may eventually fall, CoreLogic chief economist Selma Hepp said in a June 4 press release.

“Also, the price cooling is more pronounced in markets where there has been an influx of inventory and/or new construction, as well as those where additional homeownership costs (such as insurance, taxes and HOA fees) have risen relatively faster," she said.

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