What Mortgage Rate Will Bring Homebuyers Back? It’s Complicated

Late last week at the international Jackson Hole Symposium, where U.S. Federal Reserve members and global central bank leaders meet annually, Fed Chair Jerome Powell discussed a cut of interest rates by late September. While no one knows yet how large that cut would be, it fueled speculation that a subsequent cut in mortgage interest rates could soon follow. But the question for many remains: How low does the current 6.6 percent 30-year rate have to go before buyers re-engage the housing market?  The answer, not surprisingly, is complicated. “Assuming rates come down to 6 percent, that’s a more workable scenario, but then median home prices need to also fall to $364,000, and we don’t expect that to happen,” Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of real estate research for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), told The Epoch Times....