The largest single-week decline in conventional mortgage rates since July brought the first increase in home-loan applications since September, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. 

It’s not the only metric decelerating in today’s market. Inflation is also starting to slow which is helping bring down mortgage rates.

From dropping home prices, increased inventory and homes staying on the market longer, today’s buyers should look at the upside to what the market means for their prospects.

Homebuyer demand is starting to stabilize as October home sales posted the largest decline since 2015, according to a new report.

The median age of inventory in Chicago is 57 days, down from 81 before the pandemic began.

Looking ahead, CoreLogic expects national year-over-year appreciation to slow to 3.9% by September 2023. 

September is the fourth month in a row to see declining sales activity. 

A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 7.08% this week from 6.94% a week ago, Freddie Mac reported. A year ago, the average mortgage carried a 3.14% rate. 

Mortgage rates continued to weigh on homebuyers in September, following a brief uptick in new-home sales in August.  

At the same time, mortgage applications declined 1.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis on a week-over-week basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. 

In Chicago, home prices posted an 11.3% year-over-year gain in August, compared to a 12.7% gain in July. Month over month, prices fell 0.5%.

“After a sustained period of quick sales that kept the housing cupboard relatively bare, a supply of two months presents a lot more options for homebuyers,” said RE/MAX President and CEO Nick Bailey.

The only other time the market saw such change was at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Month over month in September, existing-home sales slid 1.5% to 4.71 million, which is 23.8% lower than the year before. 

New home construction missed analyst estimates in September, falling 8.1% month over month to an annual rate 1,439,000 homes, according to government statistics. 

See which agents and brokerages sold the most this quarter in our Real Data report.