If someone had told me that home sales would remain firm this year despite mortgage rates ranging from 7.25% to 6.64%, I would not have taken that bet. However, amid all the chaotic economic headlines of 2025 so far, the demand for mortgages is holding steady, even with the higher rates.
Let’s dig into the latest Housing Market Tracker data to see what last week brought us.
It’s probably too early to get excited, but several lenders reported that mortgage demand climbed to 2022 levels this week.
In 2025, despite a lot of negative economic headlines, mortgage purchase application data has shown positive year-over-year growth for 14 consecutive weeks. In today’s MBA purchase application survey, this data reflected an 11% increase week over week and a 13% increase year over year, indicating resilient market performance.
Mortgage applications increased 11% from one week earlier amid a decline in rates, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) weekly mortgage applications survey for the week ending May 2, 2025.
The index increased 12% on an unadjusted basis compared with the previous week.
Another jobs week has come and gone, and while we see some signs of a slowdown in the labor market, it’s not breaking. Since 2022, I have suggested that to get mortgage rates below 6% with a longer duration, we need to see either a shift in the labor market or additional rate cuts that would lower the Fed Funds rate to around 3.5% or below.