Yikes!
Here’s hoping you weren’t counting on Donald Trump and Scott Bessent to deliver on their joint promise to bring down the cost of financing for hugely-expensive American homes.
Mortgage rates in the US soared 15bps over the last week to 7.12%, the MBA said Wednesday. That’s the highest since April of 2024.
As the figure above reminds you, the war was a death knell not just for the big man in Tehran, but for Trump’s late-2025 pivot to domestic affordability. If you don’t remember that pivot, no one will blame you: When policy shifts don’t produce tangible results, people tend to forget them.
Since Ali Khamenei was killed with several members of his family late in February, US mortgage rates are more than 100bps higher. That’s just murder (get it?) if you’re hoping to realize the American dream of owning a nondescript, fiber cement storage unit for your family.
Technically, rates are up five weeks in a row, but the bulk of the increase came over the past three weeks. That advance sums to 33bps.
As the figure shows, that’s among the largest three-week jumps in years.
The increase in the average 30-year fixed pushed desperate buyers into ARMs last week, the MBA said Wednesday. Specifically, the 5/1 share of overall application activity was nearly 10%.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not ideal, particularly for borrowers who may not fully understand what they’re getting into. (An ARM’s a gamble on rates being lower “tomorrow” than they are today.)
Note that ARMs’ share of applications was just 3% when mortgage rates plumbed record lows in the aftermath of the pandemic.
I’d be completely remiss not to point out that this is extremely embarrassing for Bessent: Suffice to say “The House” didn’t succeed in capping Treasury yields such that more Americans can buy, err, houses.
I’ve got just under 3 years for Trump to crash the economy and lower rates before my ARM can reset 🙂
I know the old fogies on here can remember a time when 7% was a bargain, but I still suspect (hope) we are nearing the high water mark. So much of our economy hinges on massive debt loads across government and now the private sector that anything much higher will become untenable across multiple fronts and the economy and/or rates will self-correct. As you’ve pointed out, the rate of change in rates will dictate whether the market has a smooth landing or crashes (I have been paying attention in class).
All that being said, we have a madman in the drivers seat, so at this point, I should just accept that all bets are off and my pontifications are purely for entertainment purposes. In other words, a chance for everyone to laugh when I am proven wrong again and again much like the loss posts on r/wsb.
I wonder how many of those individuals who locked-in low fixed-rate (1st and 2nd) mortgages when they were still available did so on very large loan amounts. That would explain why so many sellers are unwilling (perhaps unable is a better word) to come-down on their asking price. That — combined with the price of downsizing to a smaller (yet no less expensive) home; a higher property tax assessment on the new (perhaps smaller) abode; home insurance rates that are climbing to the moon; and interest rates on new mortgages that are now above 7% — would more fully explain the veritable glacier that has settled-in over the housing market.
We had better cross our fingers and hope that jobs numbers (if you trust them) continue to hold. Foreclosures are already up this year and would be a most unwelcome development going forward. Once the banks start accepting write-downs on non-performing loans things could get spicy real quick.
If Republicans get the shellacking they deserve in the midterms, it will seem chaotic for a while, but any kind of return back to normal ( a rational world) is going to make serious waves, and if not now, soon.