Freddie Mac’s latest Mortgage Market Survey reported that interest fell again last week.  After reaching a high of 6.63% (with the borrower paying .6 points) on July 24th, the national average for a 30 year fixed mortgage, for example, has fallen to last Thursday’s average number of 6.4% at .6 points.

Freddie Mac also reported some good overall news about that strangest of abstractions, the "national" housing market.

The housing front is providing some encouraging signs. The pace of home price declines slowed down for the fourth straight month in June and the number of metro areas exhibiting monthly gains rose from seven to nine, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller® 20-city composite index. There are also signs more buyers may be getting ready to return to the market. The Conference Board says the share of households planning to buy a home within six months is now at its highest level since March. At the same time, the supply for unsold new homes is down to 10.1 months, the lowest since February, as single-family existing homes (excluding condos and co-ops) start to sell more quickly. Although, when condos and co-ops are included, the resale inventory did edge up."

Here in Sacramento, the big news over the last several months has not been a slowing of price declines (although it looks like we’ll have a slight price increase from July-August), but a huge increase in buyer demand.  We’ve been writing about this for several months now, and in a few days we will publish our August report on Sacramento County’s real estate statistics.

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