The Latest Breaking News from Fannie Mae

Rising borrowing rates are giving prospective homebuyers cold feet. But rates will almost certainly climb higher. Should you buy a house now?

This week in the housing market, mortgage rates resumed their upward movement, mortgage applications continued their downward movement and industry experts weighed in on the arrival of the next recession.

More homebuyers were taking out mortgages despite climbing rates while the tight housing inventory is showing signs of improving. Nonetheless, many homebuyers are not optimistic about the housing market’s near future.

Compared to other sectors of the wider economy, the housing and mortgage industries have traditionally been slower to embrace cutting-edge technologies and digital solutions. A myriad of reasons explain this pokey response to evolving change, ranging from the sector’s conservative risk tolerance to a lack of standardization in many evolving technologies.

In the wake of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida last year, the two federally chartered agencies that back most residential mortgages in the country, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, have instituted new rules requiring lenders to verify the condition of condominium buildings before approving loans.

Investors who have owned stocks over the last year have generally experienced some decent gains. In fact, the SPDR S&P 500 SPY (NYSE: SPY) total return over the last 12 months is 15.3%. But there is no question some big-name stocks performed better than others along the way.

Buying a condo in an older South Florida high-rise? For people who want to finance their deal, it’ll be getting tougher to take out a loan backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that make mortgages available to low- to moderate-income borrowers.