{"id":63698,"date":"2026-08-02T03:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T01:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housesmarketplace.com\/the-housing-market-defies-expectations-even-with-higher-rates\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T03:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T01:00:22","slug":"the-housing-market-defies-expectations-even-with-higher-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housesmarketplace.com\/ru\/the-housing-market-defies-expectations-even-with-higher-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"The housing market defies expectations even with higher rates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Housing demand still showed positive year-over-year growth last week, despite the hawkish Fed<\/a>, escalation <\/a>of the Iran conflict, rising \u0441\u0442\u0430\u0432\u043a\u0438 \u043f\u043e \u0438\u043f\u043e\u0442\u0435\u0447\u043d\u044b\u043c \u043a\u0440\u0435\u0434\u0438\u0442\u0430\u043c<\/a> and the 10-year yield hitting yearly highs. We had year-over-year growth in our weekly pending sales, total pending sales and purchase apps.
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Growth has slowed down over the past few weeks as mortgage rates have gotten above my key level of 6.64%. The longer we stay above 6.64%, the softer housing demand gets. This has typically been the case over the past few years.<\/p>\n

However, for now, considering everything that has happened since the Iran conflict 2.0 has surged and the Fed has gotten very hawkish, housing is doing ok. Of course, \u0438\u043f\u043e\u0442\u0435\u0447\u043d\u044b\u0435 \u0441\u043f\u0440\u0435\u0434\u044b <\/a>being better in 2026 is the housing hero story of the year, but there is another variable as well.<\/p>\n

\u0418\u043f\u043e\u0442\u0435\u0447\u043d\u044b\u0435 \u0441\u043f\u0440\u0435\u0434\u044b<\/h2>\n

To make this as simple as possible, if mortgage spreads hadn\u2019t improved as they typically do at this stage of the cycle, the housing data would look very different this year.<\/p>\n

The only reason mortgage rates got near 6% in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 was that an economic\/labor growth scare pushed the 10-year yield below 4%. This was never due to Fed policy, but the bond market attempting to get ahead of the \u0424\u0435\u0434\u0435\u0440\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u0440\u0435\u0437\u0435\u0440\u0432<\/strong> being too restrictive with policy.<\/p>\n

In the past few years, mortgage spreads were not close to normal, so rates pushed above 7% fairly easily when the economic data improved, but 2026 was the first year I didn\u2019t forecast rates above 7% \u2014 solely because of the improvement in spreads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even today, with the 10-year yield at 4.74%, a hawkish Federal Reserve and a crisis in the Middle East that has sent Brent Crude<\/a> oil prices above $100 twice and inflation above target all year long, mortgage rates haven\u2019t broken above 7% yet. This is because of better mortgage spreads. Housing demand doesn\u2019t do well when mortgage rates are above 7%, so hug a mortgage spread.<\/p>\n

Historically, mortgage spreads have ranged from 1.60% to 1.80%. Last week, spreads were at 2%, up from 1.94% the week before.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s compare last week\u2019s mortgage rates to where they would have been over the last three years, given the 10-year yield\u2019s current level:<\/p>\n