Spokane weekly real estate update | News

Mortgage rates dipped for the second week in a row, but applications for mortgages stayed flat and for refinanced loans dropped.

“Currently, higher rates, low inventory, and high prices are keeping prospective buyers out of the market,” Joel Kan, the associative vice president of economic and industry forecasting for the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a statement.

Rates continued to top what they have been over the last two years, with a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 5.46%. That was down from 5.49%.

Applications for a new mortgage were flat compared to the week before and down 16% compared to a year ago. Refinancing applications have fallen in the nine of the last 10 weeks, Kan noted. Compared to January of 2022, mortgage refinancing is down 66%, he said.

Higher mortgage rates and soaring home prices left sales of new single-family homes at a two-year low in April. First-time buyers were forced out of the market. Sales dropped 16% to 591,000 homes, Reuters reported, even as there is record low housing inventory.

A similar trend prevailed with the sales of previously owned homes, which also fell to a two-year low in April.

Builders, facing shortages and higher prices, have been unable to begin construction on all of the homes already approved.

To help you stay current on the market, ZeroDown compiled a weekly real estate market report in Spokane, WA metro area using data from Redfin. Statistics are as of the four weeks ending May 22, 2022. Metros with more than 50 homes sold during this time period were considered for metro-level rankings for each statistic.