The biggest loans of our lives are getting a bit cheaper.

I'm David Brancaccio, scary last Halloween.

The plastic ghouls from Home Depot looming over front doors and the cost of home loans hitting a peak of just

under 8% for a 30-year fixed rate. Then rates fell into the sevens and now with hiring

slowing down mortgage rates have been falling further in anticipation of an official

interest rate cut this fall. Here's Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman.

Mortgage rates are now the lowest since May of 2023, says Mike Frat-Antony at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

30-year mortgage rates are down more than half a percentage point over the past couple of weeks.

We were above 7%, we're at 6.5%. And that's led to a surge in new mortgage

applications by recent home buyers.

The borrowers who had gotten 7, 7.5, eight percent mortgages, they now have an opportunity

to refinance.

The decline in mortgage rates has not unleashed a surge in home buying.

And Zillow economist or Faye Duongi doesn't think it will, because a lot of would-be

first-time buyers have been squeezed out of the market by unaffordable prices.

You have a big disconnect between buyers and sellers in today's housing market.

You have buyers that are feeling the pinch.

Whereas most home owners have little incentive to sell with their home equity rising and

current mortgage rates still much higher than when they bought.

I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.

Two big media companies are out with quarterly results reflecting the challenges of that

industry right now cutting off cable TV in favor of streaming through the internet has left

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