Mortgage demand falls to lowest level in 22 years amid rising rates, slowing home sales

Amazing to think less than a year ago, people were getting mid 2's for 30 year loans. Glad I locked in at 2.75 last year. Gonna end up being one of the best financial decisions I've made to refi.

I think it probably has to do more with the economy than rates, though rates are an issue too.

I think all of the firms that have been buying up single family homes are going to load up even heavier on them during this downturn, then it'll be interesting to see how prices go when demand ticks up again. Those houses GS, BlackRock, etc are buying may never be on the market again (in theory).

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Never paying a penny more than my minimum note

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Same. 2.25% locked for 30 years last May. Even though I'm looking to retire early within 10 years, I won't pay this off ahead of time.

At 2.5% you should be able to exceed that in a variety of investment options.

Emotionally finishing the note feels good, but number wise it makes sense to direct that to investments

I’m already seeing reductions on a good bit of homes that have been on the market 30+ days. Not saying we are headed for a crash but I do believe the days of buying houses site unseen, inspection waivers, and bids above appraisal will be coming to a stop very soon.

Its only worth it if you will absolutely use the extra money to invest. Most people wont, and as for me the extra $100 a month that I pay on my note, its going to knock off 8 years of my 30 yr loan. Its automatically deducted, requires no thought on my part, and its painless.

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Investing your money rather than paying off a low interest rate mortgage will always win in the long run.

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It's a great practice for some. It depends on where you are in work/life cycle... younger earner, yes. Older earner may wish to terminate debt.

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Can you explain the reasoning behind never paying more than the minimum note?

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As folks have said, you should be able to easily exceed a 2.5% rate over 30yrs.

But, the second consideration is tax deductibility. Given that, the 2.5% cost actually plays out at a 1.25%-2.0% rate.

I cannot speak to other areas but here in the Orlando metro there were a huge amount of cash sales on houses. I was speaking with my real estate agent and he said almost all of his recent sales (this was ~ 6 months back) were cash purchases, most were from out of town and wouldn't even bother to look at the home. This wasn't just one or two outliers but nearly all of his sales.

The other thing I noticed is that even if you wanted a home the inventory is bone dry for anything desirable (price/home/location), so even if you wanted to buy there are very limited options.

Another factor is that if you own a home and wanted to take advantage of the sellers market rents have skyrocketed in proportion to the housing prices so renting would be a very painful option. For example the driving force for me buying a place was that my rent on a 1BR apartment was $1200, when my neighbor re-signed his lease for the same unit it was $1650 keep in mind this is a mid to low tier complex in an ok area of town definitely not a luxury place in a desirable part of town.

From my observations of my local area interest rates are likely playing a minimal role and I believe other things like the cash buyers clearing available inventory out towards the end of 2021, current low inventory and sky high prices and rent are the key reasons why mortgages are historically low.

Any idea what price range those decreases came from?