Do low interest rates cause high anxiety?

My main question for agents is – how important, or not, are these interest rates in increasing demand?

Good afternoon! Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.  To all the agents in the house,   HousingWire spent the past week providing wall-to-wall coverage of what news came out of the Mortgage Bankers Association's spring conference, and what that news means. With that spirit in mind, let's do it – let's talk about interest rates!   So, Freddie Mac released data on Thursday that the average 30-year, fixed home mortgage interest rate for quality borrowers is 2.97%. That is very low. (The mortgage interest rate in 2001 was 7%. The rate in 1981 was 17%.)    GIPHY   Now, from my vantage point as a real estate reporter and non-expert of all things 30-year fixed home mortgage interest rates, a less than 3% interest rate seems bad, right? Or at least not what the market needs?    The residential real estate market has taken a turn. The story of last fall was the most home sales since 2006, a real estate boom amid a pandemic that drastically changed consumer behavior. This spring, the story has become demand bottled up by a historic lack of inventory.    The National Association of Realtors reported this week that U.S. home sales were down in March for the second month in a row. The price of a median home, meanwhile, soared 17% year over year to $329,000.    And housing inventory at the end of March was down 28% from one year ago, per the NAR, with 1 million units on the market.   The numbers would seem to suggest that the last thing the real estate market needs is low interest rates to further spur a demand that cannot be met by supply.   But maybe I'm wrong. My main question for agents is – how important, or not, are these interest rates in increasing demand?    And, in a world where you had infinite power to choose mortgage interest rates but no power to change the housing supply, what would you like interest rates to be?   Please email me anonymously at mblake@housingwire.com.   Sincerely, Matthew Blake Senior Real Estate Reporter North Carolina's low home prices luring buyers   Raleigh-Durham, and surrounding North Carolina cities are attracting movers with larger land lots and relatively low prices. Back At You's Robust Back-Office Solution Is All You Need Back At You gives you full visibility into your brokerage's performance with powerful reporting, flexible commission setups, and robust integration to QuickBooks to easily manage your finances. Back At You is all you need! Sponsored by Back at You Existing home sales fall due to lack of housing inventory   Existing home sales fell for the second consecutive month — down 3.7% — on lack of inventory and rising home prices, according to NAR. Real estate agents and LOs: the great collaboration   Technology has given consumers the power of choice and expedited the entire real estate purchasing process. Successful agents, brokerages and loan officers of the future are going to rely significantly on technology to find, nurture and engage with buyers and sellers while also playing an expanding role as personal advisors. Presented by Propertybase Who qualifies for the $25K first-time homebuyer grant   If recently introduced first-time homebuyer legislation were enacted as written, about 4.37 million people could be eligible for the down payment assistance. HW+ Premium Content HousingWire, 433 East Las Colinas Blvd., Suite 830, Irving, TX 75039, (469) 893-1480 Unsubscribe Manage preferences

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