By the Numbers
The 30-year fixed-rate inched to 6.42%, which is still close to the lowest rate in a month, the group said.
October’s 4.6% monthly drop follows a 10.2% decline in September, the National Association of REALTORS® reported.
Housing prices were down in all 20 cities tracked by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index.
New-home sales rose 7.5% month over month, while the median price of a new house surged to $493,000 from $455,700 in September and $427,300 a year ago, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported.
The pace of new single-family home sales, meanwhile, fell 6.1% from September to 598,000.
The median existing-home price rose for the 128th month in a row, extending its record-breaking streak of increases.
The number of homes under construction rose during the month, as homebuilders continued to work through a large backlog of homes.
The largest single-week decline in conventional mortgage rates since July brought the first increase in home-loan applications since September, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.
Looking ahead, CoreLogic expects national year-over-year appreciation to slow to 3.9% by September 2023.
September is the fourth month in a row to see declining sales activity.
A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 7.08% this week from 6.94% a week ago, Freddie Mac reported. A year ago, the average mortgage carried a 3.14% rate.
Mortgage rates continued to weigh on homebuyers in September, following a brief uptick in new-home sales in August.
At the same time, mortgage applications declined 1.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis on a week-over-week basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
In Dallas, home prices posted a 20.2% year-over-year gain in August, compared to a 24.7% gain in July. Month over month, prices fell 1.9%.
Month over month in September, existing-home sales slid 1.5% to 4.71 million, which is 23.8% lower than the year before.
New home construction missed analyst estimates in September, falling 8.1% month over month to an annual rate 1,439,000 homes, according to government statistics.