a for sale sign hangs in front of a home on june 21 2022 in miami florida after falling for five straight weeks mortgage rates jumped last week triggering a decline in mortgage demand total mortgage application volume fell 77 last week compared with the previous week according to the mortgage bankers associations seasonally adjusted index the average contract interest rate for 30year fixedrate mortgages with conforming loan balances 726200 or less increased to 639 from 618 with points increasing to 070 from 064 including the origination fee for loans with a 20 down payment the rate was 405 one year ago mortgage rates increased across the board last week pushed higher by market expectations that inflation will persist thus requiring the federal reserve to keep monetary policy restrictive for a longer time said joel kan mbas vice president and deputy chief economist applications to refinance a home loan dropped 13 for the week and were 76 lower than the same week one year ago at the current rate 100000 fewer borrowers can benefit from a refinance compared with just one week ago according to data from black knight a year ago with mortgage rates at 405 there were just under 4 million refinance candidates mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 6 for the week and were 43 lower than the same week a year ago real estate agents across the country are reporting a jump in buyer demand in the past few weeks perhaps indicating an early start to the historically busy spring market i actually thought my god this is amazing look at how fast it turned on a dime said dana rice a real estate agent with compass who was running a busy open house in bethesda maryland saturday we went from no showings and nobody coming to open houses that every single thing that ive launched in the last couple of weeks has had multiple offers there is however an abnormally high level of allcash buyers in the market peter fang is one of them he was at the open house im very surprised to see so many cash offers in the market i thought i would be at a much better position but the competition is still there fang said mortgage rates continued to move higher this week after a government report on inflation showed it was higher than expected in january