Mortgage rates hit year-to-date lows after Powell comments

Mortgage rates declined to 6.52%, reaching a new year-to-date low. Weekly purchase application performance tends to improve when rates move from roughly 6.64% toward 6%. In 2025 year-over-year purchase application growth has been consistently positive, while week-to-week readings have been mixed because rates spent much of the year above 6.64%. Weekly readings for 2025 show 15 positive, 11 negative, and 6 flat prints, with 29 straight weeks of positive year-over-year data and 16 consecutive weeks of double-digit year-over-year growth. Sustained rates near 6% could yield 12–16 consecutive weeks of weekly gains and support more existing home sales.

Mortgage rates from the site Mortgage News Daily fell 10 basis points today to 6.52%, marking a fresh new year-to-date low in mortgage rates for 2025. Now, I have noticed that when mortgage rates head from 6.64% toward 6% housing data typically gets better in the weekly data. Our weekly Housing Market Tracker data updates this every weekend, but let's take a look at the most recent purchase application data.

The key for purchase application data is that we want to see growth in both the weekly data and year-over-year data together in a more steady trend. So far in 2025, year-over-year growth in the data has been good, but the week-to-week data hasn't been, as mortgage rates for the most part, have been above 6.64%. Here is the weekly purchase application data for 2025: 15 positive readings 11 negative readings 6 flat prints 29 straight weeks of positive year-over-year data 16 consecutive weeks of double-digit growth year over year

Over the last three weeks, mortgage rates have remained below 6.64%, leading to positive weekly and year-over-year data. While the week-to-week growth has been modest, it has still been positive, and year-over-year growth has reached double-digit levels. If mortgage rates can decrease to around 6% and remain there for a while, we could see at least 12 to 16 weeks of positive weekly application data, similar to what we experienced during the last two instances when rates approached 6%.

Read at www.housingwire.com