Are we going to get a rate cut at the July Fed meeting?

Could the Fed cut interest rates at the July meeting?

The Federal Reserve is scheduled to hold their next Open Market Committee meeting on July 30^th-31^st. Is there any chance we see a rate cut as a result of their next meeting? A recent article from The Mortgage Reports explored what market watchers are saying.

After the June meeting, the Fed signaled that they could cut rates in the next few months. However, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a rate cut this month. Inflation has cooled, but the Fed has stated multiple times that they need to see a sustained downturn in the inflation rate before a rate cut will become a reality.

The chances of a cut coming out the July meeting is at less than 5% according to the most recent predictions from economists. It’s far more likely that we’ll see a rate cut in or after the September meeting.

Where are mortgage rates at this week?

The national average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dipped 0.03% to 6.87%* on Tuesday. The national average for mortgage rates has been drifting in the 6.80%-to-6.95% range for about two weeks now. The last big move we saw came after inflation data on the morning of June 11^th.

The next major data point that could impact the market comes on Friday with the release of personal consumption expenditures data.

Are we in a buyer’s home market?

While the housing market varies from region to region, and even metro-to-metro, but some real estate experts in Texas believe that some formerly hot areas are firmly a buyer’s market.

Joe Atkins, a real estate broker with Joe Atkins Realty, stated, “I think we are 100% in a buyer’s market.” Atkins went on to say, “You can see that there are 147 homes that have had price decreases as of 10:30 today. If you would have looked at this three years ago, price decreases were probably close to zero.”

Atkins also stated that bidding wars simply weren’t occurring to the level they were during the pandemic. When asked about the change, Atkins said, “People were like, what if another house doesn’t come up and then we can’t afford it? 

Now people are like, you know what? We lose it…we lose it. We got three more to look at in the neighborhood, right? So I just think this is really something sellers really need to know.”

While every major in area in Texas may not follow the same pattern, frontline real estate agents are often the first to notice changes in their local area. If there truly has been a shift in an area like Texas, homebuyers may want to start taking a second look at the current housing market.

* National average rates accurate as of 7/23/24 from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are not advertised rates from Guaranteed Rate.