At the start of the year, consensus mortgage and housing-related forecasts projected a rate cut or two by the Federal Reserve, continued easing in mortgage affordability and a moderate increase in home sales as markets across the U.S. continue shifting in favor of homebuyers.
All of those outcomes remain in the cards of economics teams at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and government-sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae. But the likelihood they materialize grows increasingly tenuous as the Iran war and the global energy shock it induced wreak havoc on global economies and household budgets, driving up near-term inflation forecasts and undermining international trade.
Recently updated mortgage origination and home sales forecasts for ...