(Bloomberg) -- Mortgage rates in the US climbed, breaking a three-week streak of declines.
The average for a 30-year, fixed loan rose to 6.71% from 6.67% last week, Freddie Mac (OTC:FMCC) said in a statement Thursday.
Buyers have been confronting a housing market with limited inventory as many homeowners, reluctant to give up their low-rate loans, resist selling. The lack of existing homes for sale is pushing up prices in some areas and driving sales of newly built houses, which rose at the fastest pace in more than a year.
“Despite affordability headwinds, homebuyers have adjusted,” Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in the statement.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that at least two more interest-rate increases would likely be necessary by the end of the year to calm inflation.
“The script is still being written, and if mortgage rates push up again, then we’re going to see more weakness in the housing market,” Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics chief economist, said on Bloomberg Television this week.
“But if mortgage rates stay somewhere between 6% to 7% — where they’ve been for the last six, nine months — I do think we’re seeing a bottom in housing activity,” he said.
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