By Nick Timiraos | The Wall Street Journal
Home prices moved up at a torrid pace during the first half of the year, but don’t expect them to keep pace during the second half.
The big spike in mortgage rates over the past two months has reset the housing market and figures to take a bite out of demand at a time when more sellers have listed homes for sale and when price gains have tested investors’ purchasing appetites.
Mortgage rates, which stood at a low of 3.59% at the beginning of May, jumped to 4.58% during the last week of June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Rates rose even more last Friday, after a strong jobs report firmed up investors’ expectations that the Federal Reserve would begin to curtail its bond-buying program later this year.
A rule of thumb holds that every one percentage point increase in interest rates reduces affordability by 10%, so the recent move in rates just made homes about 10% more expensive to buyers who need to finance their purchase.
