The wait is finally over. For the first time since March 2020, the Federal Reserve has cut short-term interest rates.
On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced the central bank would reduce the federal funds rate — what banks charge each other for overnight loans — by 0.50 percentage points to a target range of 4.75%-5%. The announcement is welcome news to a housing industry that has seen a slump in home sales over the past year and a half, mainly because of high mortgage rates.
But anyone expecting mortgage rates to immediately nosedive due to the central bank’s actions should “hold their horses,” says Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage.
Will mortgage rates decrease after the Fed rate cut?
Cohn explains that changes in the federal funds rate don’t directly affect mortgage rates. Instead, they tend to be influenced by the bond market and the yields paid to investors. Bonds, in turn, are influenced by the economy and labor market’s overall strength.
Because the reduction in rates was so widely anticipated, many lenders have already priced it into their loan offerings. Mortgage rates have dropped by more than half a percentage point over the past six weeks based on signs of a slowing economy and the expectation of a rate cut this month.
While Cohn and other housing experts expect mortgage rates to continue to move lower, the decline will likely be gradual and extend through the rest of the year (and into 2025). But there could be some bumps along the way.
Exactly how fast rates decrease will depend on how the economy is doing, says Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, adding that “the weaker the labor market data and lower the inflation rate, the faster mortgage rates will decline, and vice versa.”
Rate movement will also depend on hints the Federal Reserve may give about future cuts, Hale says. Indications of a quick succession of large rate cuts would lead to lower rates over a shorter time, while a slow and steady approach would give way to a longer, more moderate downward trend.
How will rate cuts impact the housing market?
Lower mortgage rates have already provided an improvement in affordability. Prospective buyers currently active in the market are better positioned to take advantage of declining rates and could save more than $200 a month on a $300,000 loan compared to May 2, when rates hit a year high of 7.22%.
However, those savings could increase as rates trend lower, prompting some would-be buyers to hold out for a more significant rate decline. According to Fannie Mae’s most recent Home Purchase Sentiment Index, the percentage of American consumers who say they expect mortgage rates to continue to decline over the next year recently notched a survey high of 39%.
Although increased affordability is good for buyers, there is a downside. Demand for available homes will likely increase as more buyers return. In a housing market where inventory has improved but is still not back at pre-pandemic levels, a significant increase in demand without a corresponding increase in supply could cause home prices to soar again.
Whether rates can go low enough to offset higher prices remains to be seen. In the meantime, Hale says that house hunters “who are faster to take advantage of lower mortgage rates could reap the benefits of added purchasing power before buyer competition ramps back up.”
Consumers holding off on big financial moves until interest rates fall may be waiting for some time to come, experts say.
The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points Wednesday. Consumers are primed and ready: In a NerdWallet survey conducted in July, 61% of respondents said they plan to take some financial action once interest rates for consumers go down. About one-fourth said they plan to buy a car; one-fifth plan to invest some of their savings, and about an equal share plan to refinance a loan; and one in six intend to get a new credit card.
Yet for those who have the luxury of trying to time their money moves, “the fact is, the impact at the outset is pretty minimal” except on loans as large as mortgages, for which modest interest-rate changes can translate to big dollars, Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate, told MarketWatch. Want to take advantage of lower interest rates? Here's how to prepare.
He expects interest rates to come down more slowly than they went up. “This is the beginning of a series of rate cuts,” McBride noted. “As those rate cuts mount, for the balance of this year and through much or all of 2025, that’s when the pocketbook effect will be more noticeable.”
In response to high inflation, the Federal Reserve started to gradually increase the federal funds rate in 2022 from a range of 0% to 0.25% up to 5.25% to 5.50%. This made the cost of borrowing — whether through credit cards, car loans, or mortgages — significantly more expensive for people. Average credit-card rates reached an all-time high in 2024, and continue to hover near 21%.
That has turned up the financial pressure for the 77% of American families with debt. “In the first quarter of 2024, credit-card and auto-loan transition rates into serious delinquency continued to rise across all age groups,” Joelle Scally, regional economic principal within the household and public-policy research division at the New York Fed, said in May. “An increasing number of borrowers missed credit-card payments, revealing worsening financial distress among some households.”
With the prime rate going down, “we should start to see borrowing costs for autos decline,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic told MarketWatch. “Mortgage rates have already come down … and credit-card interest rates will go down a little bit — but that’s always the worst debt to take out.”
Still, experts say the impact of a 50-basis-point decrease on consumers will be minimal at the onset. People may not see a noticeable difference in monthly payments until after the Fed has made several rate cuts, likely by 2025. Affordability will also continue to be a challenge for consumers despite lower interest rates, as prices remain high compared to before the pandemic.
“I think the most important thing to not lose track of among all of the rate-cut talk is that your credit scores are more influential to the cost of your funds than rate cuts,” John Ulzheimer, a credit expert and former FICO
FICO
EFX
For those aiming to time big financial decisions to movements in interest rates, here are some expert insights on exactly when you can expect to see the effects of Fed rate cuts — and how much money you stand to save.
When will car loans be affected by Fed interest-rate cuts?
Interest rates on car loans have already come down in anticipation of Fed rate cuts, Mike Douglas, head of dealer services at Chase Auto
JPM
EXPN
EXPGY
The translation for car buyers: about $20 a month in savings on an average car payment. A full percentage-point decline in interest rates only reduces the average monthly payment from $740 to $718, Cox Automotive chief economist Jonathan Smoke told the Detroit Free Press.
“It is doubtful that auto rates will rapidly decline as soon as the Fed starts cutting,” Smoke wrote in July, adding that auto-loan rates “are bound to be sticky on the way down.”
Looking ahead, Moody’s
MCO
The bigger affordability issue for car buyers is the price of an automobile, which soared during the pandemic — increasing to an average of more than $49,000 in August, from $38,000 in March 2020, according to the car-buying app CoPilot.
When will credit cards be affected by Fed interest-rate cuts?
Cash-strapped consumers are relying on credit cards for everything from groceries to school supplies as the cost of living goes up. Credit-card interest rates typically start to come down a few weeks after the Fed cuts rates, NerdWallet
NRDS
However, credit-card APRs likely won’t come down meaningfully until the federal funds rate is down by several hundred basis points, Ulzheimer told CBS News, which may not be achieved until 2025. Moody’s Zandi expects credit card rates to still be near 20% by then.
These record-high credit card interest rates are harming borrowers’ overall financial health, according to Cox’s Smoke. “Interest expense on credit cards appears to be crowding out spending on goods and services and is likely contributing to delinquencies and defaults on credit cards and auto loans,” he wrote.
Even when rates do fall, credit cards remain an incredibly expensive form of debt, NerdWallet’s Rathner noted. A person might stand to save a few dollars in interest each month when rates come down, but it is far more important to “prioritize paying that debt down as aggressively as you can,” she said.
When will mortgage rates be affected by Fed interest-rate cuts?
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has already fallen from highs close to 8% last October. Fannie Mae
FNMA
The median list price for a house in August was about $430,000. For buyers looking to borrow $340,000, a decrease from 6.35% to 6.1% would translate to a roughly $50 decrease in their monthly payment, from $2,115 to $2,060.
For existing homeowners considering refinancing their mortgage, only a small share would be impacted by such a decrease. Just 14.3% of outstanding mortgages had an interest rate of 6% or higher as of early 2024, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
“I don’t imagine we’ll see a wave of refinancing except for people who are stuck in high-APR mortgages, or people who have high APRs because their credit was bad, but will be good enough to qualify for something better,” Ulzheimer told MarketWatch.
Moody’s Zandi and Fannie Mae both expect the average 30-year mortgage rate to fall below 6% by the end of 2025 if the Fed continues to make cuts, which could unlock a lot of home-buying demand. Nationwide expects the rate to decline to 5.35% by the fourth quarter of next year.
When will savings-account APYs be affected by Fed interest-rate cuts?
Many people have been keeping their emergency cash in high-yield savings accounts and CDs, plenty of which have been offering rates above 5%. Unfortunately, falling interest rates will also impact these accounts, and we’re already seeing the effects.
“This year has seen around 53 decreases and seven increases in top CD rates,” according to a Bankrate report. The rates on high-yield savings accounts can change at any time, but CD rates are fixed for the term. “If rates continue to decrease on CDs, you may thank yourself for locking in a high yield now, as long as you’re comfortable parting with the money for the CD’s entire term,” the report said.