KSHB 41 reporter Abby Dodge covers consumer issues, personal budgeting and everyday spending. Share your story idea with Abby.
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For the first time in four years, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.5%.
The national key interest rate now stands between 4.75-5%.
"They are all thinking about it," Jackie O'Connor-Stahl, a Kansas City-area realtor, said about the buyers she is currently working with. "They are all putting it into perspective."
O'Connor-Stahl said mortgage lenders started lowering interest rates in the last few weeks in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s decision.
She is looking forward to more buyers and sellers joining the Kansas City market after Wednesday’s announcement.
"I am hopeful for sure," she said. “With just the indication of them maybe reducing the rates, things start to hustle and bustle with loan companies and sellers and that’s what we want."
Larry Wigger, a UMKC professor of supply chain management, said the Federal Reserve’s big cut was used to set their intentions over the next year, which means borrowers can plan for the future too.
"The fed making this move and signaling clearly that we are going to do this a half a dozen times in the next year, year and a half," Wigger said. “Now [borrowers] can strategically plan and count on that, make investments, anticipate the cost of money is going to continue going down."
Subsequent rate cuts, which could come as early as November, will likely be closer to a quarter of a percent.
Wigger said it will take consumers some time to notice this change in their everyday lives.
“Will it have a direct immediate impact to the prices we pay? Probably not immediately,” he said. “Where we might appreciate it though is interest rates are down.”
Markets rose positively in the wake of Wednesday’s news.
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