Americans Now Paying 15% More On Mortgage Payments Compared To Last Month As Rates Surge

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Topline

Americans are paying 15% more on mortgage payments now than six weeks ago, according to data released Thursday by real estate brokerage Redfin, as the market continues to bleaken for prospective home buyers amid a mortgage-rate spike.

A Redfin real estate yard sign is pictured in front of a house for sale in Seattle.

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Key Facts

The typical monthly mortgage payment on the median asking price home is $2,547, the highest level since Redfin began tracking the metric in 2015.

That is a 15% increase from August 14 and a 50% jump from this time in 2021, when the typical payment on the median asking price home was $1,698.

The rise is largely due to mortgage rates surging as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates: The 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 6.7% Thursday, a 16-year-high, up from 4.99% in the first week of August and 3.01% at the same time last year.

Key Background

The housing market is already feeling the pain of the Fed’s aggressive actions to bring down inflation, as demand for new mortgages hit its lowest level since 2000 last month and new home sales teeter near its lowest level since early 2020. New home sales unexpectedly spiked in August, which many analysts dismissed as an anomaly. The median home sale price in the four weeks ending September 25 was $369,250, according to Redfin, up 7% year-over-year and nearly 20% compared to 2020, as home prices skyrocketed during the pandemic.

Crucial Quote

“It’s the worst time to buy a home in a very long time,” Chris Mayer, a real estate professor at the Columbia Business School, told Marketplace last week.

Tangent

The stock market dove Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 450 points, or 1.5%, largely due to investor concerns about the Fed using economic data to pursue further rate hikes.

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