Lower Mortgage Rates Halted a Weekly Demand Slide, HousingWire Says

A pause after rates retreated

Mortgage rates eased from a peak of about 7.60% toward 7.30% during the week covered by HousingWire’s October 24 report. The publication linked the move to the 10-year Treasury yield falling back below 5% after holding near 5.35% through much of October.

HousingWire said its weekly pending-sales measure stopped declining and posted a slight gain. It cautioned that the result was only a temporary pause in softer demand and that holidays and short-term volatility can affect the weekly series. The measure generally takes 30 to 60 days to appear in closed-sales data, according to the report.

Demand remains sensitive above 7%

The report characterized demand as stronger in the first half of 2026 when mortgage rates were below 6.64%, apart from holiday and snowstorm effects. It said rates above 7% have corresponded with softer data over the past three years and 10 months.

Purchase-mortgage applications, a forward-looking measure that HousingWire says can lead sales by 30 to 90 days, were still down both week over week and year over year. The latest application reading did not yet reflect the most recent decline in rates.

For 2026 through the report’s publication, HousingWire counted 15 positive, 23 negative and five flat weekly purchase-application readings. It also counted 25 weeks with year-over-year growth, 13 with year-over-year declines, and 10 weeks of double-digit year-over-year growth.

Supply rose, while listings entered their seasonal slowdown

Active inventory increased from 905,166 on October 16 to 911,956 on October 23. During the comparable week a year earlier, inventory rose from 859,424 to 862,924. HousingWire put year-over-year inventory growth at 5.68% and said growth had picked up since mid-August, although it remained relatively restrained in 2026.

New listings were following their usual seasonal decline, and the report noted a year-over-year drop in the latest week. Still, it described 2026 as the healthiest year for new listings since 2022, with weekly totals exceeding 80,000 at several points.

Spreads and the next rate signals

Mortgage spreads—the gap between mortgage rates and the 10-year yield—rose to 2.23 percentage points from 2.21 the prior week. HousingWire noted that this was above the historical 1.60% to 1.80% range but near cycle lows compared with the period since Federal Reserve rate hikes began in 2022.

The report’s author identified oil prices, developments around the Iran conflict, AI-related credit conditions and the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting as factors to watch. The author’s 2026 forecast had assumed mortgage rates of 5.75% to 6.75% and 10-year yields of 3.80% to 4.60%, ranges exceeded by the conditions described in the report.