Banking Troubles Slow Down Rate Hikes

By PATRICK LAVERY The result of this week’s two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting was not nothing, but neither was it as aggressive a decision as officials at the Federal Reserve might have liked to make. Once again, the target range for the federal funds rate was raised one-quarter of a percentage point, bringing them up to 4.75% to 5%. What kind of news that turns out to be for the housing market remains to be seen, but it doesn’t stray too much from what several industry experts told The Mortgage Note last week. In fact, the 25-basis point hike was exactly what was predicted in TMN’s interview with Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of real estate research for…