From RealTrends.com: If history is any indication, the recent spike in mortgage rates is going to have little to no impact on home prices, according to a new report from Fannie Mae.
After looking at mortgage rates going back to 1990, Fannie Mae’s researchers came to the surprising conclusion that while rising rates were likely to hurt the number of home sales, they had virtually no impact on home prices.
“History suggests that interest rate increases at the level recently witnessed will not stop the current housing recovery,” the report said.
The study, which compared historic mortgage rates with home price and sales data, focused on two time periods when rates soared. The first, from October 1993 through December 1994, when rates rose to 9.2% from 6.8% and the second from October 1998 to May 2000 when they climbed to 8.5% from 6.7%.
Read more: Higher mortgage rates don’t mean higher home prices, Fannie Mae says – Jul. 18, 2013.