Hate To Burst Your Bubble, But No One Really Knows What 5% Mortgage Rates Will Mean For Real Estate In mid-April, average mortgage rates surpassed 5% for the first time in about a decade — and they are expected to increase further as the Federal Reserve increases interest rates this year in an effort to put a lid on inflation. Higher rates will cut into demand for housing, experts agree, but there is less agreement on whether that means a hard landing for the housing market — a 2008-style bubble pop, that is — or merely some cooling of the market's recent fever pitch. 
"Interest rates are going to pull back some of the essentially unserved demand that builders were turning away because of their own supply chain issues," National Association of Home Builders Chief Economist Robert Dietz said. If that were the case, a drop in demand might represent a…  Read the full story here. | 
