That marks a welcome change from much of the turbulence of the first half of 2024, Baublitz said. “At the beginning of the year, there was all this speculation about how the trends of inflation were going, and when the Fed would finally be done with their restrictive policy regime,” he said. “Then we had a little head-fake where it looked like things were done, and then we went back the other way.
“So I’d say it’s been very volatile at times this year, market liquidity has remained pretty strong… but we’ve had more of a defined trend [recently], which has been nice. We coalesced around the idea that the Fed would begin loosening their restrictive stance at some point, and they just did.”
Are buyers more amenable to higher rates than in the past?
The psychology of borrowers has also changed somewhat in 2024, according to Baublitz, with less alarm around spiking mortgage rates than during previous years.
“Acceptance” might be the wrong word for borrowers’ approach in the current market, he said – but there’s certainly a growing understanding that the rock-bottom rates of the COVID-19 pandemic are not coming back anytime soon.
That means many homebuyers are more amenable to the idea of paying points upfront on their mortgage rate, Baublitz said. “We’re still dealing with slower, constrained inventory and we’re still seeing those types of dynamics, but I think the borrower is just a little bit more comfortable with everything and they’ve kind of gotten through the initial shock and surprise of everything that we saw over the last couple of years,” he explained.