What are experts predicting for the upcoming Fed meeting?
This week’s Fed meeting marks the one-year anniversary of the last rate hike they made. Since then, we’ve seen nothing but pauses. Could that change this week? CBS News spoke with several industry experts to take their pulse on what the Fed could do.
According to the article, most economists believe the Fed will keep rates where they are at the July meeting. Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, recently wrote, “The case to cut is already strong, and the Fed will likely use the July meeting to plant a seed that a cut in September is on the table.”
Market watchers are expecting the next meeting, in mid-September, will produce the first rate cut from the Fed since 2020.
Where did mortgage rates start this week?
The national average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage ended Friday’s session down 0.05% to 6.81%* on Monday. This puts rates near six-month lows, and there’s the potential to move lower if the Fed has a favorable announcement or sounds especially dove-ish. However, there’s also the potential to bounce back towards 7.00% if the Fed comes across as hawk-ish.
Market watchers believe that the current rally is sustained by the latest inflation data, but that could change if they Fed sees data it doesn’t like.
Are investors staying out of the housing market?
In Q4 2023, real estate investors purchased a record share of houses. However, the latest data compiled by Real Estate News shows that times have changed a bit.
In June 2024, investors accounted for about 23% of single-family home purchases according to CoreLogic. That’s a 5% drop from January 2024 and is the lowest level of investor purchases in nearly two years.
Also, a recent report from Clever Real Estate surveyed 764 real estate investors, and the report showed that the majority claimed to “have regrets about their investments.”
Finally, recent data from Realtor.com showed that the percentage of investors paying with cash fell to 64% in Q1 2024. That’s down from nearly 70% in Q4 2023. Realtor.com researchers speculated that more investors are choosing to finance their purchases “because the majority are now independent investors rather than big corporations.”
* National average rates as of 7/29/2024 are included for educational purposes only and are not advertised rates from Rate.
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