---
title: "01 - Lower Mortgage Rates, More Buyer Options"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/f8443cc6-2e3b-4a2b-9363-68792fd3d4d4
stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/e0aa7518-e055-42ed-8cd9-cf54197d1077
summary: "WOKV Spotlight discusses declining mortgage rates with ERA One Team broker Andrew Linn, reporting a 30-year fixed rate drop to 6.25% and increased buyer options in Northeast Florida's balanced market. Linn explains how lower rates and increased inventory (4.4 months supply) are giving buyers more negotiating power and entry opportunities into the home market."
tags: "mortgage-rates, real-estate, housing-market, florida, buyer-options, interest-rates, home-sales"
key_entities: "WOKV (organization), Freddie Mac (organization), ERA One Team (organization), Tammy Trahio (person), Andrew Linn (person), Andrew Linn (person), Northeast Florida (location), Florida (location), mortgage-rates (concept), balanced-market (concept), inventory-supply (concept)"
classification: "video"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 1165
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# 01 - Lower Mortgage Rates, More Buyer Options

[00:00] This is the WOKV Spotlight on 104.5 WOKV.
[00:06] WOKD news time 6:55 and mortgage rates are, um, down this week.
[00:11] Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is 6.25%. That's down from 6.5% last week. It's the biggest weekly drop in a year. But rates are still higher than they were this time last year. Mortgage applications were up more than 9% last week.
[00:27] I'm Tammy Trahio.
[00:28] And Andrew Linn is a third-generation Floridian and second-generation broker at ERA One Team. He and his family, and I believe your wife's family as well, have been in this area for a very long time. Good morning, Andrew.
[00:43] Good morning. Thank you for having me.
[00:44] So let's break down what's happening with mortgage rates. Is this, I hate to qualify things as either being good news or bad news because if it's good news for somebody, it's certainly bad news for another. But, but how are you perceiving the news on mortgage rates?
[00:58] The rates are definitely, uh, cooling down, uh, and on a downward trajectory, which, uh, they have been high, uh, for a while. So they're definitely, uh, cooling down and and look forward to the next six to 12 months of that same, uh, trajectory in this area.
[01:12] In this area, do you see that heavily impacting home sales?
[01:18] We do, we do. It's definitely a, a feeling, a sentiment. Um, one of the things I've been, uh, telling, uh, people for the last, I guess, six to 12 months is this market is very inconsistent, uh, and I've been doing this nearly 25 years. Um, this market is inconsistent, two weeks on, two weeks off. And I think it is because of that sentiment of, of the rates. Um, however, I will say, um, we are getting into more of a balanced market where we were coming out of a, more of a seller's market the last couple, uh, of years. That being said, being a more balanced market, buyers do have a lot more to pick from because the inventory is ticking back up. We're currently at about a 4.4 month of supply, uh, in our, in Northeast Florida.
[02:04] What does that mean?
[02:05] Means that there's, there's more supply on the market compared to, um, let's just say compared back to 2008. 2008, there was about 25, 26 months of supply. So if no homes were to ever come on the market, it would take 4.4 months just to completely take that supply off the market. And so again, to compare that back to 2008, which a lot of people like to do, um, that's a huge difference. So, but that also compares to back in 2021, 22. The absorption rate was down to 11 month. So we're definitely seeing a tick up, uh, in supply, which allows buyers a lot more options. When buyers have a lot more options, they can negotiate with the seller different ways with closing costs, prepaids, uh, buying down the interest rate, uh, which will allow buyers a lot more options, um, to enter the home market.
[02:59] So is the market, the market is good for sellers at this point or it's still balanced? Because I think it was a buyer's market for a while and people were hanging onto their homes because they were not able to sell them.
[03:09] Yeah, sellers are definitely, um, hate use the word negotiation, negotiating. But the sellers are definitely getting tired of holding onto homes a lot longer than they were. Um, the average days on the market has ticked up. I think from the last time we spoke, it was like 32 days. Now it's like 44 days, uh, is the average day. So sellers are willing to negotiate more in this more balanced market. I will say one, um, of the things, one of the trends we've seen recently is that builders are definitely willing to, um, have a lot more incentives for, um, for buyers to enter the home market. Just to give you an example, we had a meeting this week. Uh, a buyer got into a home with $100 down and a 3.99% rate.
[04:02] That's.
[04:02] And just to give that, and just to give that in for that, that's kind of the extreme. But that just shows you where what we're, we're, we're coming back into. And again, that is a complete, in my opinion, extreme. However, that seller, that new, that builder wanted to move that inventory. And so we're seeing that trend come back because the, uh, they, they don't want to sit on the inventory. Sellers, new construction, new builders, they do not want to sit on their inventory, um, much longer.
[04:30] Andrew Linn, broker owner, ERA ONE TEAM, we thank you and we look forward. We could keep you here for 20 minutes talking about questions. We'll have you on again soon. Thanks so much.
[04:39] Thank you so much for having me.
[04:41] WOKV news time coming up on 7 o'clock.