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Mortgage rates hover near 7% with no sign of budging: Freddie Mac

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Mortgage rates have stalled near 7% with the Fed’s plan to dial back interest rates delayed. (iStock)

Mortgage rates hovered in the 6.8% range again this week and are likely to remain in that range despite improving inflation metrics, according to Freddie Mac. 

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.82% for the week ending April 4, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That’s an increase from the previous week when it averaged 6.79%. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.28%. 

The average rate for a 15-year mortgage was 6.06%, down from 6.11% last week and up from 5.64% last year.

The Federal Reserve has signaled that it is in no rush to lower interest rates and is committed to maintaining its restrictive monetary policy until it gets further indication that inflation is moving towards its 2% target rate. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said recently that the plan to lower interest rates is still on track but that the central bank will monitor inflation and other economic indicators to determine when that happens. Market expectations are that the first rate cut will come in the summer, if not later in the year.   

“Mortgage rates showed little movement again this week, hovering around 6.8 percent,” Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist Sam Khater said. “Since the start of 2024, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has not reached seven percent but has not dropped below 6.6 percent either. 

“While incoming economic signals indicate lower rates of inflation, we do not expect rates will decrease meaningfully in the near-term,” Khater continued. “On the plus side, inventory is improving somewhat, which should help temper home price growth.”

If you are ready to shop for the best rate on a new mortgage, consider visiting an online marketplace like Credible to compare rates and get preapproved with multiple lenders at once.

BIDEN WANTS TO GIVE HOMEBUYERS $400 PER MONTH: STATE OF THE UNION

Mortgage apps plunge as interest rates steady

Elevated mortgage rates continued to weigh down on home buying. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said Wednesday that purchase applications have fallen for three consecutive weeks and dropped 0.6% from one week earlier. Refinancings dropped 2% and were 5% lower year-over-year.

“Mortgage rates have hovered around 7 percent recently, leading to a three-week slide in mortgage applications,” MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit said. “Although the home purchase market remains subdued, the uptick in FHA purchase applications is an indication that first-time buyers are active this spring despite continuing supply and affordability headwinds.”

Additionally, elevated mortgage rates and high home prices have now made renting a better month-to-month deal than buying a starter home in all 50 markets, according to the Realtor.com February 2024 Rental Report

If you’re looking to become a homeowner, you could still find the best mortgage rates by shopping around. Visit Credible to compare your options without affecting your credit score.

HOMEBUYERS GAINED THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AS MORTGAGE INTEREST RATES FALL: REDFIN

For sale housing inventory improving

Spring homebuying activity will likely be affected by the still-too-high borrowing costs, however, housing inventory is improving. According to Relator.com, an increasing number of homeowners are choosing to put their homes up for sale despite having to relinquish their lower mortgage rates to move in today’s housing market.

Homes listed for sale increased 23.5% in March compared with the same time in 2023, according to Realtor.com’s March 2024 Housing Trends Report. Moreover, in the first three months of 2024, the inventory of homes actively for sale was at its highest level since 2020. Much of the activity has been driven by homes priced in the $200,000 to $350,000 range.

“A higher mortgage rate has been a deal breaker for many over the last year, but an increasing number of homeowners are choosing to sell as we approach what is the ideal time–the week of April 14-20,” Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said. “The number of homes actively for sale is at its highest level for this time of year since 2020.”

If you’re considering becoming a homeowner, it could help to shop around to find the best mortgage rate. Visit Credible to compare options from different lenders and choose the one with the best rate for you.

HIGH HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE RATES SCARING AWAY FLORIDA HOMEBUYERS, OTHER STATES FACE THE SAME ISSUE

Have a finance-related question, but don’t know who to ask? Email The Credible Money Expert at [email protected] and your question might be answered by Credible in our Money Expert column.

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Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski faces biggest test yet: IPO

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Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images

LONDON — After 20 years in the role as Klarna’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski is about to face his toughest test yet as the financial technology firm prepares for its blockbuster debut in New York.

Siemiatkowski, 43, co-founded Klarna in 2005 with fellow Swedish entrepreneurs Niklas Adalberth and Victor Jacobsson with the aim of taking on traditional banks and credit card firms with a more user-friendly online payments experience.

Today, Klarna is synonymous with “buy now, pay later” — a method of payment that allows people to buy things and either defer payment until the end of the month or pay off their purchases over a series of equal, interest-free monthly installments.

But while Siemiatkowski has grown Klarna into a fintech powerhouse, his entrepreneurial journey hasn’t been without its challenges — from facing rising competition from rivals such as PayPal, Affirm and Block‘s Afterpay, to an 85% valuation plunge.

Nevertheless, Siemiatkowski hasn’t taken those challenges lying down and the outspoken co-founder isn’t shy to challenge criticisms in the run up to an IPO that could value it at $15 billion.

‘Crazy enough’

In October 2024, CNBC met with Siamiatkowski during a visit the Swedish entrepreneur made to London. For a businessman who’s faced a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs over his two-year CEO tenure, Klarna’s chief has a calm air to him.

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“Independently of all the cycles and everything we’ve gone through with the company, at any point in time I ask myself, do I still think that Klarna can become the next Google in size, that we can become a hundreds of billions dollar market company, or a trillion dollars,” Siemiatkowski told CNBC. “I still am crazy enough to think that’s achievable.”

Once a pandemic-era darling valued at $46 billion in a SoftBank-led funding round, Klarna saw its valuation plummet 85% in 2022 to $6.7 billion as rising inflation and interest rates dented investor sentiment on high-growth technology firms.

But the firm has attempted to rebuild that eroded value in the years that have followed.

Klarna makes money predominantly from fees it charges merchants for providing its payment services, in addition to income from interest-bearing financing plans and advertising revenue.

Financials disclosed in its IPO filing show that Klarna reported revenue of $2.8 billion last year, up 24% year-over-year, and a net profit of $21 million — up from a net loss of $244 million in 2023.

Bullish on AI

After the launch of OpenAI’s generative AI ChatGPT in November 2022, Siemiatkowski quickly pivoted Klarna’s focus to embracing the technology, and especially in a way that could slash costs and enhance the firm’s profitability.

However, Siemiatkowski’s strategy and his comments on AI have also attracted controversy.

Klarna imposed a freeze on hiring in 2023 as it looked to tighten costs. The following year, the company said that its AI chatbot was doing the work of 700 full-time customer service jobs.

Klarna’s CEO then said in August that his company was able to reduce its overall workforce to 3,800 from 5,000 thanks in part to its application of AI in areas such as marketing and customer service.

“By simply not hiring … the company is kind of becoming smaller and smaller,” he told Reuters news agency, adding that jobs were disappearing due to attrition rather than layoffs.

Asked by CNBC about his views on AI and the upset they have caused, Siemiatkowski suggested he was “done apologizing,” echoing comments from Mark Zuckerberg about the Meta CEO’s “20-year mistake” of taking responsibility for issues for which he believed his company wasn’t to blame.

Doubling down, Siemiatkowski added that AI “already today can do a lot of the jobs that people do — but I don’t want to be one of the tech leaders that stands on a stage and says, ‘Don’t worry about it, there’s going to be new jobs,’ because I don’t know what those new jobs are.”

“I just want to be transparent and honest with what I think is happening, and I’d rather be open about that, because I know what these people, the tech leaders are saying when they’re not on public stages, and they’re not saying the exact same things,” he told CNBC in October.

An outspoken CEO

Siemiatkowski is no stranger to defending his company in response to criticisms, especially when challenged over Klarna’s business model of offering short-term financing for all kinds of things from clothing to online takeout.

Last week, Klarna announced a tie-up with DoorDash to offer its flexible payment options on the U.S. food delivery app. However, the move was met with backlash from internet users, who said it risks saddling struggling consumers with more debt.

One X user posted a meme showing personal finance pundit Dave Ramsey with the caption, “what do you mean you have $11k in ‘doordash debt’.”

Siemiatkowski took to X to defend the move, saying that Klarna “offers many payment methods” including the ability to pay in full instantly or defer payment until the end of the month in addition to monthly installments.

“DoorDash offers many products beyond food!” Klarna’s boss said on X in response to the criticisms. “I know we are most famous for pay in 4. But you can use a credit card at DoorDash as well.”

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In 2022, the outspoken entrepreneur stressed his company was “superior” to credit cards and “extremely recession-proof” after the firm laid off 10% of its workforce.

As Klarna approaches its stock market debut, investors will likely be scrutinizing his track record and whether he’s still the right person to lead the company longer term.

Lena Hackelöer, CEO of Stockholm-based fintech startup Brite Payments, is someone who’s worked under Siemiatkowski’s leadership, having worked for the company for seven years between 2010 and 2017 in various marketing functions.

She expressed admiration for the Klarna co-founder — and pushed back on suggestions that leadership mismanaged the business during the pandemic era.

“I never thought that they had mismanaged, which is somehow how it was reported,” Hackelöer told CNBC in a November interview. “I think that they were just very much focusing on growth — because that was the direction that investors were giving.”

Rollercoaster ride

Siemiatkowski admits the journey of building Klarna hasn’t always been rosy.

Asked about the biggest challenge he’s ever faced as CEO, Siemiatkowski said that, for him, laying off 10% of Klarna’s workforce in 2022 was the toughest thing he’s ever had to do.

“That was very difficult because I didn’t predict that investor sentiment would shift that fast and people would go from valuing companies like ours so high and then to something so low,” he said.

“That’s obviously very difficult because, then you realize like, ‘OK, s—, I’m going to have to make a change. It’s not going to be sustainable to continue, and I need to protect the consumers, who are stakeholders in the company, the employees, the investors — I need to [do] what’s right for all of my constituents,” Siemiatkowski continued.

Klarna is synonymous with the “buy now, pay later” trend of making a purchase and deferring payment until the end of the month or paying over interest-free monthly installments.

Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images

I think anyone who is a little bit sane, that’s not something you take light hearted, right? It’s a tough decision. It makes you cry. I’ve cried.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

CEO, Klarna

The company also onboarded hundreds of new employees to capitalize and expand on the opportunity it saw from government lockdowns’ impact on consumer behavior and the broader acceleration of e-commerce adoption at that time.

“I think anyone who is a little bit sane, that’s not something you take lighthearted, right?” Klarna’s CEO said, referring to the layoffs. “It’s a tough decision. It makes you cry. I’ve cried.”

However, Siemiatkowski stood by his decision to lay off workers: “I felt like I had an obligation to my constituents, everyone, all of these stakeholders, the company, and I think it was a necessary decision at that point in time.”

The road to IPO

Now, Klarna’s CEO faces his biggest test yet — taking the business he co-founded two decades ago public.

“IPOs are risky for companies as share prices can fluctuate quickly,” Nalin Patel, director of EMEA private capital research at PitchBook, told CNBC via email. “They can be costly and lengthy to arrange with investment banks too.”

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Klarna earlier this month filed its prospectus to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The company hasn’t yet set a date for when it will go public, nor has it priced shares.

If it succeeds, the outcome could catapult the net worth of Siemiatkowski and other shareholders including Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake, Mubadala Investment Company, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Sequoia is Klarna’s single-largest shareholder with a 22% stake. Siemiatkowski is the second-largest, owning 7% of the business.

A positive IPO outcome would also lift the value of Klarna employees’ stakes, and potentially boost morale after a turbulent few years for the company.

“It’s a balance between finding a fair value for existing investors looking to cash out and new investors seeking a stake in Klarna at a fair price. Overvaluing the company could lead to its valuation falling in the future. While undervaluing it may mean money has been left on the table for those exiting,” Patel said.

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