The American dream has never been more out of reach.
Mortgage rates posted their largest increase in four years this week, one of the clearest signs of how the recent bond-market selloff is spilling into the broader economy - if not memory and chip stocks which continue to trade entirely on the highly efficient circular financing and junk bond markets.
30-year fixed-rate mortgages rates surged 25bps in one week, to 7.28% from 7.03%, the biggest jump since October of 2022, according to Freddie Mac.
Mortgage rates have risen to the highest since November 2023 as inflation, a surge in government debt and heavy corporate borrowing for the build-out of AI (not to mention the latest European sovereign debt crisis) push up bond yields. The recent sharp selloff in the bond-market has risen borrowing costs for home buyers and dealt a blow after blow to a limping housing market.
“Showings have stopped basically,” said Don Wessel, a real-estate agent in Greenville, S.C, quoted by the WSJ. "I’ve got good listings in downtown Greenville, which is one of the hottest areas, and nobody’s looking at them."
In 2022, rates surged as part of postpandemic inflation that ended years of below 5% mortgage rates and ground the housing market to a halt. Home sales still haven’t recovered from that rapid freeze four yea
