When will home loans click into lower gear? You may have just heard the click. I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Here is what we're expecting, subject to the winds of fate. In just over seven hours, we'll get the bulletin from the Federal Reserve lowering a key short-term interest rate by one quarter of a percentage point. And soon after,

the central banker-in-chief Jerome Powell will hold a briefing on signs the job market is weakening

and the state of inflation. That'll be parsed for hints about how much and when more rate cuts might

come, and Powell will be vague in his answers. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell sharply in the last day.

6.13% now, the lowest in more than a year using Mortgage News Daily's calculation. The Mortgage Bankers Association has its own update on the way. Here's Marketplace's Carla Javier.

There are a lot of factors that go into mortgage interest rates, says Jessica Loutts,

vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors. Yes, federal reserve policy is one

part, but also it's really looking at the market. It's looking at supply and depend for mortgages.

Also the 10-year treasury yield, also inflation.

You get the idea.

So if the Fed cuts interest rates by, say, a quarter of a percentage point,

Lout says mortgage interest rates probably won't immediately decrease by the exact same amount,

because they've already come down.

We actually already know because there's been so much fodder about a potential rate cut

over the course of the last week or so that the mortgage market is actually already starting

to respond.

And so we are seeing that the 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate has actually declined

to the lowest rate in nearly a year.

At this point where mortgage rates will go from here really depends on what Chair Powell

will say at the press conference.

Kenny Lee at Zillow and Street Easy says as the market tries to divine how far the Fed will go

in cunning rates.

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