The average 30-year mortgage rate has pulled back considerably since topping 8% in October. The average interest rate on a new 30-year, fixed rate mortgage is now 7.17%, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
While this is certainly encouraging, mortgage rates remain more than double the level of two years ago. Prospective home buyers are wondering when relief might reach and when it might become cheaper to sign a new loan with a mortgage lender. While nobody knows for sure what will happen, some of the most widely followed mortgage industry experts recently shared their projections.
What the experts are predicting
Some real estate experts have made 2024 mortgage market predictions as of late. A few offered specific projections, while others are reluctant to give specific numbers but still shared some valuable insights. Here’s a roundup of some of the major predictions to know. Unless otherwise noted, the projections are for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages.
Real estate website Realtor.com has one of the more optimistic projections, forecasting that rates will drop to 6.5% by the end of 2024. The National Association of Realtors expects rates to steadily refuse to 6.3%. The Mortgage Bankers Association and Wells Fargo’s Economics Group are predicting 6.1% and 6.05% average rates, respectively, by the end of 2024.
Real estate brokerage and technology platform Redfin recently released its predictions, which include a 1% refuse in average home prices and a surge in new listings. And a big part of that is Redfin’s expectation of mortgage relief, with the company’s experts predicting mortgage rates will steadily refuse throughout the year, ending 2024 at about 6.6%.
Zillow calls predicting mortgage rates a “nearly impossible task” but says the recent inflation data points toward rates holding steady for at least the next few months.
According to Freddie Mac’s latest Economic, Housing, and Mortgage Market Outlook (November 2023), home prices will rise by 2.6% in 2024, more than most other forecasts are projecting. And while the agency didn’t make a specific 2024 mortgage rate prediction, it did say that mortgage originations will remain low, while only starting to enhance in 2025.
Fellow mortgage giant Fannie Mae gave a more specific projection, and likely not one that prospective home buyers want to hear. Fannie predicts mortgage rates will average 7.3% in 2024 (roughly where they are now) and not fall below 7% until mid-2025. Goldman Sachs agrees, also predicting that mortgage rates will remain above 7% throughout 2024.
Nobody has a crystal ball
The first, and most important, takeaway is that nobody has a crystal ball that will forecast with accuracy what mortgage rates will do. If you had asked 10 experts at the beginning of 2022 (when rates were about 3%) where they would be at the end of that year, none of them would have said rates would more than double. There is a lot that can happen in a year, as we’ve seen, and these experts are making the best projections they can using the information they have now.
Having said that, it does seem that virtually nobody thinks that mortgage rates will go up. The general consensus is that the average 30-year mortgage rate will end 2024 somewhere between 6% and 7.3%, and even at the midpoint of that range, it would make a big difference in the average new borrower’s monthly payment.
