A prospective home buyer, left, is shown a home by a real estate agent in Coral Gables, Florida. Getty Images

Mortgage rates have been falling steadily since the last week of April, and that may be reigniting home price appreciation. The lower the rate, the more purchasing power buyers have. Home price gains had been shrinking since last summer, when rates rose sharply, but are now making a U-turn with rates falling pretty steadily since April. The median price of a home sold in May rose 3.6% from a year earlier, according to Redfin. That is the largest gain in seven months.

"As mortgage rates have fallen this month, Redfin has seen upticks in the number of people wanting to talk with our agents about buying homes and the number going on home tours," said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. "Recent surges in mortgage applications also reflect the impact low rates are having on homebuyer demand nationwide." A report from CoreLogic showed prices up 3.6% in April annually, the first annual increase since March 2018. "The pickup in sales between March and April, has helped to counter the recent slowing in annual home-price growth," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. "Mortgage rates are 0.6 percentage points below what they were one year ago and incomes are up, which has improved affordability for buyers. However, price growth has remained the highest for lower-priced homes, constraining housing choices for first-time buyers."

Rate drop on 30-year fixed mortgage

And that is the double-edged sword for most homebuyers today. The average rate on the 30-year fixed has fallen from just over 5% last November to about 3.86% today, according to Mortgage News Daily, providing a sizable savings on a monthly payment. But while buyers may get a break there, the supply of lower-priced homes for sale is still incredibly low. The reasons for the supply constraint are manifold. Homebuilders are still not putting up as many entry-level homes as are needed because the costs of land, labor and materials are just too high. There were 404,000 job openings in the construction sector in April, the highest since the Great Recession, according to the National Association of Home Builders. In addition, the existing supply of entry-level homes was eaten into significantly by investors during the housing crisis. Millions of homes that went to foreclosure are now part of a new asset class of institutional investor-owned rental portfolios.