{"id":104481,"date":"2024-02-26T18:03:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T18:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/new-home-sales-ticked-up-in-january-despite-elevated-mortgage-rates\/"},"modified":"2024-02-26T18:03:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T18:03:25","slug":"new-home-sales-ticked-up-in-january-despite-elevated-mortgage-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/new-home-sales-ticked-up-in-january-despite-elevated-mortgage-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"New home sales ticked up in January, despite elevated mortgage rates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2024-02-26\/GettyImages-2003103193.jpg\" alt><figcaption>Lisette Morales McCabe\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>(WASHINGTON) &#8212; New home sales ticked up in January, despite a twin burden imposed by elevated mortgage rates and expensive housing prices, according to U.S. Census data released on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Sales of new single-family homes rose 1.8% in January compared to the previous year, data showed. The survey found an estimated 661,000 homes were sold in January.<\/p>\n<p>On a monthly basis, sales climbed 1.5% from December.<\/p>\n<p>The fresh data offers a glimmer of optimism for an otherwise sluggish housing market.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, existing-home sales declined in January compared to the previous year, the National Association of Realtors said last week.<\/p>\n<p>Mortgage-purchase applications fell 10% from a week earlier, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association on Wednesday showed.<\/p>\n<p>The divergent trends for new and existing home sales trace back to elevated mortgage rates. The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage has soared to 6.9%, rebounding after a steady decline at the end of last year, according to a report from Freddie Mac on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Homeowners are largely opting to stay in their current residences because they would rather stick with comparatively low-rate mortgages than shift to high-rate ones.<\/p>\n<p>Mortgage rates track yields on 10-year Treasury bonds, which are highly sensitive to the benchmark interest rate set by the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n<p>The Fed says it expects to cut interest rates this year but so far has kept the rates at high levels, since inflation has resisted downward pressure in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>The supply of new homes, on the other hand, is garnering interest from prospective buyers unable to find homeowners willing to sell.<\/p>\n<p>The median sales price of new houses sold in January was $420,700.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lisette Morales McCabe\/Bloomberg via Getty Images (WASHINGTON) &#8212; New home sales ticked up in January, despite a twin burden imposed by elevated mortgage rates and expensive housing prices, according to U.S. Census data released on Monday. Sales of new single-family homes rose 1.8% in January compared to the previous year,<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/new-home-sales-ticked-up-in-january-despite-elevated-mortgage-rates\/\">Read More &rarr;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}