Mortgage rates hit 7.40% on Thursday, Oct. 8, their highest level in nearly three years. The seventh straight weekly increase is piling costs onto Radnor and Haverford homebuyers.
The benchmark 30-year fixed rate rose from 7.28% the prior week, Freddie Mac reported, as first reported by the Associated Press. A year ago, the average stood at 6.30%.
For local buyers, the math is stark. The rate has climbed 1.42 percentage points since briefly dipping to 5.98% in late February. On a $400,000 loan, that translates to roughly $376 more per month.
In Wayne, the median sale price reached approximately $895,000 in May. In Haverford Township, the median sat at $546,000 in August. Most local buyers are financing well above that $400,000 benchmark, meaning the actual monthly hit is proportionally larger.
Radnor Township posted the highest median sales price in all of Delaware County for 2025 at $1,192,500, a 32.1% jump over 2024, according to Philadelphia.today. Northeast home prices climbed 4.3% year-over-year in August, outpacing the rest of the country, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported.
The rate surge traces to bond-market turmoil since the U.S. war with Iran began in late February. The 10-year Treasury yield stood at 5.29% at midday Thursday, up from 3.97% before the conflict started. Surging oil prices have fueled inflation worries, pushing borrowing costs higher.
The Federal Reserve added pressure when it raised its key interest rate on Wednesday, Sept. 16, for the first time in three years.
Buyers are pulling back.
Mortgage applications fell for a fifth straight week as of Oct. 8, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported. Refinance applications dropped to their lowest level since January 2025, less than half the pace of a year earlier.
Nationally, existing home sales fell 2% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million units, their slowest pace in more than a year, NAR said.
"Expect 7% as the new normal," Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist, said in late September when the rate first crossed 7%. "Job additions will be the one factor that can support homebuying."
The rate has only climbed since. Wayne's housing market already showed signs of tightness in May, with just 1.8 months of inventory and homes selling at 101.6% of list price, according to Bright MLS data.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said in September when August sales data came in weak: "Americans are hitting the pause button on homebuying."
The 30-year rate last sat higher on Nov. 16, 2023, when it reached 7.44%. Freddie Mac releases updated rate data each Thursday.
