Home buyers and homeowners got another chance this week to lock in historically low rates. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.98%, Freddie Mac reports.

America’s least desired colors for home decoration: orange and pink. Purple and yellow also were low on the popularity list of consumers using them in home design.

This is the result of a survey of more than 1,500 consumers by Modsy, an online interior design service. More than a third of survey respondents ranked these two colors as their least favorite, Apartment Therapy reports on the findings.

A majority of house hunters say it’s not prices that are keeping them out of the housing market—it’s other buyers. Forty-five percent of prospective buyers recently surveyed say they keep getting outbid by other offers, according to a new survey from the National Association of Home Builders. The NAHB says this is only the third time in the survey’s history that the top reason prospective buyers have been unsuccessful has not been due to finding a home at an affordable price.

Offering slight relief to home buyers this week, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to a 3.09% average. But rates may rise again soon.

Housing analysts largely expect mortgage rates to increase in the following months due to the Federal Reserve’s announcement this week that it will slowly reduce its monthly bond purchases.

“While mortgage rates fell after several weeks on the rise, we expect future upticks due to strong economic data and as the Federal Reserve pulls back on its stimulus,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.

First of all, there’s housing affordability, or rather, lack thereof.

Rents continue to rise nationwide, growing 7.5% year-over-year in June 2021, according to CoreLogic. The Financial Times highlights that home prices in the 20 biggest U.S. cities are growing at twice that rate, at 15% year-over-year.

Mortgage rates are no longer at ultra-low rates below 3% as they were this summer, but housing analysts are reminding house hunters that borrowing costs remain relatively cheap. Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.14% this week.

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Oct. 28:

*30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.14%, with an average 0.7 point, rising from last week’s 3.09% average. A year ago, they averaged 2.81%.

Companies are eager to bring their employees back to the office, but a delay in office equipment could postpone those returns even more. Delays for commercial desktop computers and other equipment are reportedly surging.

“We are looking at up to 120 days’ wait for some large enterprises if they have specific components required, and right now they are planning to receive devices in January and February,” Mikako Kitagawa, a research director at Gartner Inc., told The Wall Street Journal.

Beyond the sentimental attachments that seniors have built for their homes, they also believe homeownership was the smartest financial decision they ever made, a new survey says.

Nearly three in four seniors—74%—say that purchasing their home was their best financial decision, according to a new survey of more than 1,500 respondents ages 60 to 75 conducted by the American Advisors Group. Further, 73% of respondents say that their home has become their most valuable asset.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage moved up for the second consecutive week, averaging 3.09%, Freddie Mac reports.

“Mortgage rates continued to rise this week due to the trajectory of both the economy and the pandemic,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Even as the availability of existing homes is improving, prices remain high due to home buyer demand and limitation on housing starts and permits resulting from the ongoing labor and material shortages.”

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will accept appraisals conducted remotely—without the physical presence of an appraiser—starting in early 2022 for qualifying Fannie Mae– or Freddie Mac–backed mortgages. The government-sponsored enterprises will use public records, including listings and tax appraisals, to process desktop appraisals for purchase loans.