Mortgage Rates Have Skyrocketed Under Joe Biden, Chart Reveals

Mortgage rates have hit a 22-year high, and have more than doubled since President Joe Biden took office.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed home loan rose to 7.51 percent on Monday, up 0.12 percent from a day before, according to Mortgage News Daily (MND). The rate is over 7.5 percent for the first time since 2001, MND reports.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loan, also increased. The average rate rose to 6.80 percent, up 0.09 percent from the previous day.

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It means the monthly mortgage payment for purchasers of existing homes using the 30-year fixed rate and median home prices is $2,309, according to a chart shared by Michael McDonough, chief economist for financial products at Bloomberg, on X, formerly Twitter.

"This is a substantial increase from $977 in March 2020," McDonough wrote.

Mortgage rates have risen dramatically during the Biden presidency, according to a graphic shared by the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog, last month.

The chart, which relies on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage data from Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, shows mortgage rates now are twice the average rate that buyers paid when former President Donald Trump left office.

Rates went down from 4.09 percent to 2.77 percent between January 19, 2017, and January 21, 2021—when Trump was president—but shot up from 2.77 percent to 7.09 percent between January 21, 2021, to August 17, while Biden has been president.

As well as adding hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, thus limiting how much they can afford, the higher rates also discourage homeowners who locked in lower rates from selling and jumping into a higher rate on a new property.

The Fed cut its benchmark interest rate to near zero to bolster the U.S. economy during the COVID crisis, but mortgage rates spiked as the central bank aggressively hiked rates to fight inflation triggered by a bounceback from the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The latest rise in mortgage rates follows a sharp uptick in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use to price rates on mortgages and other loans. The yield has been above 4 percent this month and climbing.

Republicans have blasted Biden's economic policies for rising mortgage rates and prices.

"Just last week, the Consumer Price Index showed prices have risen 17.4 percent since Mr. Biden took office. That means 26 months of consumers watching their paychecks disappear before their very eyes due to the rising cost of living," Texas Rep. Pat Fallon, chair of the House Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs, said during a hearing last week.

"Worse yet, mortgage rates have nearly doubled since Joe Biden took office, making it much harder for Americans to buy a new home. That's clearly not the American Dream."

Asked for comment on the rising mortgage rates, the White House said the Biden administration had taken action to tackle the housing crisis.

The administration had enabled more borrowers with student loan debt to qualify for mortgages, reduced mortgage insurance premiums by $800 per year for hundreds of thousands of first-time homebuyers, provided more than $17 billion in novel funding to help states and local governments meet housing needs and made it easier to use federal funds to build housing, a White House official said.

"President Biden is investing in affordable housing after decades of inaction," White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa told Newsweek. "He believes young people deserve to live in a quality home that they can afford to rent or own—that they deserve a fair shot at the American dream. President Biden is ready to make the significant investments that would make that dream a reality, but Congressional Republicans have blocked every effort to do so."