By coinnews 
00:00 Brad
Mortgage rates for the weekend and May 22nd are out. Yahoo Finance is Claire Boston joins me now with the numbers, Claire. Where the numbers coming at?
00:08 Claire
Hey, Brad. So this week the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is at 6.86%. That is up from 6.81% a week ago. 15-year mortgages are also a little bit higher at 6.01% versus 5.92% a week ago. And I’m actually surprised we didn’t see a bigger rise in rates this week. Um, pretty much all of this movement upward is associated with the US debt downgrade that Moody’s did on Friday. Um, you know, they said that the growing deficit and higher interest burden, um, are kind of reasons that the US is no longer triple A credits. Um, we saw bond yields rise really dramatically this week, just because traders were kind of rethinking is the US really this safe haven, you know, just given this reality and this debt world that we live in. Um, and you know, we talk all the time on here about on here about how the 10-year treasury yield is a real indicator of where mortgage rates are headed. Uh, treasury yields rose a lot, and so mortgage rates are higher, too.
00:59 Brad
Yeah, we have a comment here from Sam Cater, who is the Freddie Mac chief economist saying mortgage rates inched up this week but continue to remain lower than one year ago with more inventory for buyers to choose from than the last few years. Purchase application activity continues to hold up here. Claire, we also know that there’s some new data suggesting that home values and prices could fall slightly over the course of the year. What do we know there?
01:21 Claire
Yeah, so we are getting some new indications about what is going on this spring and generally home buying is pretty sluggish. Um, as a result, Redfin and Zillow are now calling for a slight drop in median home prices this year. Redfin sees them down about 1%. Zillow thinks it might be down 1.4%. And really what we’re seeing is that sellers are listing their homes. Buyers are not really buying right now. And a lot of it I think comes down to affordability. Home prices are still pretty near their all-time peaks, mortgage rates here hanging out close to 7%, it’s hard for those buyers to get into the market and as a result, they are basically waiting for lower prices.
02:03 Brad
All right, just recap the numbers 6.86% for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, 15-year fixed rate mortgage, averaging 6.01%. Claire, thanks so much.
02:15 Claire
Thanks, Brad.