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How far will HELOC rates fall in October?
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Homeowners have long benefitted from the ability to borrow against the equity in their property at an affordable rate. And, in many cases, a home equity line of credit (HELOC) can be an especially helpful tool, as it gives borrowers access to a line of credit to draw from as needed.
As the Federal Reserve began raising rates in the post-pandemic era due to surging inflation, home equity loan rates climbed along with costs of other debt — but even with the rate hikes, HELOCs remained more affordable than many other borrowing options, including credit cards.
The good news is that the Fed has shifted course and a cooler rate climate has already had a positive impact on HELOC rates. This trend is expected to continue, leaving many borrowers wondering just how low HELOC rates could fall this month.
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How far will HELOC rates fall in October?
We’ve checked in with a few experts to get their take on where HELOC rates could head this month. That way, you may be better prepared to make informed borrowing choices.
Current HELOC borrowers may see lower payments this month
For borrowers who currently have a HELOC, October brings good news. That’s because HELOCs are typically variable-rate loans that are likely to be impacted if the Federal Reserve decides to cut rates at its upcoming meetings.
“HELOCs are mostly tied to the prime rates. Because of this, that rate moves lockstep with the Fed’s rate movements,” says Kevin Lebowitz, president and CEO of Grayton Mortgage. “When the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points, the prime rate was lowered by 50 basis points as a response. This will start showing up in lower HELOC rates and payments this month since there’s a delay.”
Borrowers with variable-rate HELOCS don’t need to take any action to see borrowing costs drop.
“If they have an adjustable rate HELOC, their rate will automatically go down as the prime rate goes down,” says Doug Perry, strategic financing advisor at Real Estate Bees.
Compare today’s top HELOC rates now.
HELOC rates for new borrowers may not decline much in October
While current borrowers may see financial relief this month, the news isn’t as positive for new borrowers hoping for a dramatic rate drop in October compared to current HELOC costs.
As of October 7, 2024, the average HELOC rate nationwide was 8.94%, which reflects a decline from the post-pandemic peak. Still, most experts think it will stay around that level for the remainder of the month rather than declining further.
“I would plan on paying 8.00% to 9.00% for a home equity line in October if you have really good credit. Around 9.00% to 10.00% or even higher if your credit isn’t really good,” says Aaron Gordon, branch manager and senior mortgage loan officer at Guild Mortgage.
Rates aren’t likely to move much this month because the Federal Reserve is not meeting again until November. Still, Gordon did say more banks may begin competing in the HELOC market in response to a rise in customer demand in the cooler rate climate. This could put some downward pressure on HELOC costs.
“More competition means lower rates,” Gordon says.
Bigger HELOC rate cuts could be coming soon
Although October may not bring the rate decline some would-be borrowers have been hoping for, that doesn’t mean it’s not coming.
“Home equity lines will start to become cheaper as the Fed continues to lower rates,” Gordon says.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that the Federal Reserve will drop rates further, but the Central Bank has made clear further cuts are on the horizon in 2024 and 2025.
“While no one knows exactly what interest rates will be in the future and there are many factors that influence rates, investors can accurately understand the probabilities for future interest rates via FED futures contracts, and those clearly indicate the future direction of rates is down,” Perry says.
According to Leibowitz, rumors suggest November’s cut will drop rates by 25 basis points. If that happens, “then the prime rate will be lowered by that amount,” he says. This, in turn, could result in a comparable decline in HELOC rates in November.
Of course, while there’s ample reason to believe the predicted rate cut will go into effect, the Fed will still be paying attention to economic indicators to determine whether to move forward with planned cuts.
“Going forward, the pace and size of future rate cuts must happen in a way that avoids reigniting inflation, says Kyle Enright, president of lending at Achieve.
“To a lesser extent, the Fed is also likely keen to even the impression of attempting to influence the outcome of the November election,” Enright says.
If inflation begins surging again, the Fed could pause in its efforts to bring down the benchmark rate or even reverse course.
The bottom line
The good news is that borrowers don’t necessarily need to wait for November in hopes of a rate cut if they want to get the best deals. “It doesn’t make sense for a homeowner who wants to tap into the equity in their home to wait for the FED to lower rates further,” Perry says. “If they have an adjustable rate HELOC, their rate will automatically go down as the prime rate goes down. They can get the money they need now while benefiting from lower rates in the future.”
Of course, since borrowers put their homes on the line by using them as collateral for a HELOC, it’s vital to ensure any loan is affordable both today and in the future. Shopping around for the best rates currently available and borrowing carefully can help them protect their homes while gaining access to an affordable line of credit they can use for important goals.
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Mass deportation would come with hefty bill, require more manpower, immigration experts say
The mass deportation plan former President Donald Trump has pledged to institute if he’s reelected would come with a hefty price tag.
The American Immigration Council estimated that it could cost $88 billion annually to deport one million people a year. The removal of millions of construction, hospitality and agriculture workers could reduce the U.S. gross domestic product by $1.7 trillion.
Tom Homan, who led U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, said he doesn’t know if the $88 billion a year cost estimate is accurate, but he says mass deportation is necessary.
“What price do you put on national security? Is it worth it?” Homan said.
How deportations work now
60 Minutes recently joined ICE officers in Silver Spring, Maryland, as they located and arrested undocumented immigrants with criminal histories, including assault, robbery, drug and gun convictions. They’d been identified by ICE as threats to public safety.
60 Minutes
They stopped a van and arrested the passenger, a 24-year-old Guatemalan with an assault conviction, who had been ordered deported by a judge five years ago. ICE officers said the driver of the van was also in the country illegally and had been deported once before, but he was let go. Matt Elliston, director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, said the driver didn’t have a criminal record.
“He was picking up his employee to go to work,” Elliston said. “It doesn’t make sense to waste a detention bed on someone like that when we have other felons to go out and get today.”
Elliston said ICE’s mission is targeted enforcement — using immigration law to improve public safety.
“It’s not to just aimlessly arrest anyone we come across,” he said.
It took a team of more than a dozen officers seven hours to arrest six people, and that doesn’t include the many hours spent searching for them.
Are there resources to support mass deportation?
There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States — about 3% of the population — and Trump has vowed to launch the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history. Homan, who Trump has said would join him if he wins a second term, said he’s unaware of any written mass deportation plan.
“ICE is very good at these operations. This is what they do,” Homan said.
But Elliston doesn’t know how, in Maryland, the agency could find the resources for mass deportation.
60 Minutes
“Just the amount of money that that would cost in order to detain everybody, you know, it [would be] at the Department of Defense level of financing,” he said.
Jason Houser, ICE chief of staff during the first two years of the Biden administration, said it costs $150 a night to detain people like those 60 Minutes saw arrested. The average stay as they await deportation is 46 days. One deportation flight can cost $250,000, and that assumes the home country will accept them. Many, like Cuba and Venezuela, rarely do.
Who would handle mass deportation?
ICE currently has around 6,000 law enforcement officers in its deportation branch. It would require a massive increase in manpower to arrest and deport a million people a year, Houser said.
“You’re talking 100,000 official officers, police officers, detention officers, support staff, management staff,” he said.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller has said staff could come from other government agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, but Houser criticized the idea of taking people from other agencies outside ICE off their set missions.
Immigration enforcement also requires specialized training and language skills that most military and law enforcement officers don’t have.
“It is not an easy swap,” Elliston said. “What I can tell you in, from the Immigration and Nationality Act, immigration law is second to the U.S. tax code in complexity.”
Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to implement mass deportation if he’s reelected has ignited fears of family separations.
Monica Camacho Perez and her family have lived and worked in the United States since coming illegally from Mexico more than 20 years ago. Camacho Perez teaches English as a second language to immigrant adults, and she also works in the public high schools. Her family lives in Baltimore.
“We are a normal family, like anybody else,” she said. “We go to church. We work every day. We pay taxes,” she said.
She’s among the more than 500,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children who are protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA.
“I’m the only one right now that’s, like, protected, while my parents are not, my brothers are not,” she said. “My brothers have children that are born here. So if they were to get deported, what will happen to their kids?”
Would families be separated if Trump’s reelected?
When asked whether there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families, Tom Homan, who led immigration enforcement during the first year-and-a-half of the Trump administration, said, “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”
Like Camacho Perez’s nieces and nephews, more than four million U.S.-born children live with an undocumented parent.
60 Minutes
Asked why children should have to leave the country where they were born and raised, Homan said, “Because their parent absolutely entered the country illegally, had a child knowing he was in the country illegally. So he created that crisis.”
During Homan’s time leading ICE – in what became one of the most controversial policies of the Trump administration – at least 5,000 migrant children were forcibly separated from their parents when their parents were arrested at the border and prosecuted for crossing into the U.S. illegally.
Asked about published accounts saying that family separation at the border was his idea, Homan replied: “Not true. I didn’t write the memorandum to separate families. I signed the memo. Why’d I sign the memo? I was hoping to save lives. While you and I are talking right now, a child’s going to die in the border. . . . So we thought, ‘so maybe if we prosecute people, they’ll stop coming.'”
Trump has said Homan would be joining him in the new administration if he wins a second term. Asked if this family separation policy would be re-instituted then, Homan said, “I don’t know of any formal policy where they’re talking about family separations.”
60 Minutes
Asked whether it should be on the table, he replied, “It needs to be considered, absolutely.”
How that would happen given a court settlement reached late last year between the federal government and the American Civil Liberties Union is unclear. Under the settlement, the federal government is barred from separating migrant families at the border for the next eight years if the sole purpose is to prosecute the parents for entering the U.S. illegally.
“I can’t imagine living here without them.”
Back in Baltimore, Camacho Perez said she has given a lot of thought to what she would do if her parents were deported. Even though Baltimore is where she grew up, and she now owns her own home there, she thinks she would go back to Mexico with her parents if they were deported.
“They’re also part of my American dream,” she said. “And I can’t imagine living here without them.”
NEW YORK — Thousands of people, including from other parts of the country, descended on Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday afternoon for former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally.
The NYPD said it had drones over the area, robots, and a helicopter, as well as antiterrorism units outside monitoring the situation to keep everyone safe.
With just nine days to go until Election Day, a new CBS News poll has the two presidential candidates neck and neck, with Vice President Kamala Harris at 50% and Trump at 49% among likely voters. In battleground states, both are polling at 50%.
The focus of the respective campaigns has been on issues, including immigration, the war between Israel and Hamas, and crime.
JD Vance, Elon Musk, Melania Trump spoke
Sunday’s rally marked a detour from the battleground states for Trump. Among those who took the stage before the former president spoke were former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Staten Island activist Scott LoBaido.
“President Trump grew up here. He’s a New Yorker,” Giuliani said. “That’s why people get a little bit annoyed at him. He speaks his mind.”
When Trump entered the arena there was applause, a standing ovation, and everyone started chanting. Every seat appeared to be filled from the floor to the highest sections. In addition to Trump, vice presidential nominee JD Vance, billionaire supporter Elon Musk and Trump’s wife, Melania, all spoke.
Trump supporters revel in former president’s appearance
The former president is from Queens. CBS News New York met supporters from his home borough, but also a couple from Chicago.
“I just love him, and he’s the best. I want the economy to get better,” a woman said.
“We have an influx of migrants, illegal migrants. Our economy is … just go to the grocery store,” a man from Dutchess County added.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman was one of several Long Island representatives who came to the Garden in the Trump motorcade.
“Just look around. This is incredible. We’re in New York City in the middle of, you know, this is liberal … one of the most liberal cities in the country, and it’s amazing,” New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov said.
Vulgar language during the introductions
Before Trump took the stage, there was some vulgar language in the speeches. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, referred made a crude joke referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” and made other offensive jokes about Black people and Latinos.
Sid Rosenberg, a radio host that Trump often talks to, called Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a b***,” and referred to migrants as “f—ing illegals.”
David Rem, a childhood friend of Trump’s, called Harris “the antichrist.”
Grant Cardone, a business owner, said Harris “and her pimp handlers will destroy the country.”
Mass deportation would come with hefty bill, require more manpower, immigration experts say
Migrant families worry over possible family separations if Trump wins | 60 Minutes
Donald Trump’s rally draws apparent sellout crowd to Madison Square Garden
Mass deportation would come with hefty bill, require more manpower, immigration experts say
Migrant families worry over possible family separations if Trump wins | 60 Minutes