The housing market is set for more crashes as mortgage rates continue to skyrocket, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.
The warning comes after the existing-home sales report on Thursday showed a 1.5% plunge in September to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.71 million units. That marked the eighth consecutive decline and the longest downturn since 2007.
“While existing home sales declined less rapidly than earlier in the year and home prices increased sequentially, we expect the deterioration in the housing market to reaccelerate in future prints,” Goldman Sachs said in a note Thursday.
Analysts cited a lag in the sales data that hasn’t yet accounted for the recent increase in mortgage rates, which are now near 7% for 30-year fixed mortgages.
That’s because existing home sales aren’t accounted for until a deal is finalized, which normally happens anywhere from one to three months after contracts are inked.
However, since the start of August, mortgage rates have climbed by roughly 2 percentage points, meaning September home sales data likely didn’t reflect the surge in borrowing costs.
