Good news!

I’m being sarcastic already. Typically, if you see me use an exclamation point, there’s snark ahead.

Mortgage rates in the US slipped over the week for the first time in quite a while, prompting an uptick in purchase apps and refis, according to this week’s update from the MBA.

Although that is in fact good news, it needs a giant asterisk and a footnote to remind the casual reader that a marginal decline in rates hardly matters in the wake of a near three-quarter-point increase since the beginning of the war and in the presence of near-record-high home prices.

There’s the chart. Rates fell a whole 4bps, to 6.77%. Note that the purchase apps index is inverted.

“After five consecutive weeks of increases, mortgage rates declined slightly last week as oil prices dipped briefly on the hopes of a sustained resolution to the war in Iran,” MBA VP Joel Kan remarked, adding that although the small rate reprieve “supported an increase in applications, the pace has fallen below last year’s in recent weeks.”

The MBA update came on the heels of another poor showing for existing home sales, which fell a second straight month in July.

Meanwhile, Redfin — whose housing data I prefer to anyone’s — said Wednesday that US home sales were the lowest in almost two years last month.

According to the site’s analysis of MLS data, sales dropped more than 4% from June, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The figure above plots that series with the 30-year fixed as reported by Freddie Mac.

“The housing market suffered from a mid-summer slump in July as would-be buyers grappled with record-high home prices, increasing mortgage rates and growing financial insecurity,” Redfin’s head of macro research, Chen Zhao, told Dana Anderson.

“Many Americans,” Chen went on, “simply can’t afford today’s housing costs.”