The Federal Reserve this month made its first interest rate cut in over two years a large one – 50 basis points – and senior central bankers signal more cuts are coming.

The central bank’s action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8 percent, down from a two-decade high of 5.3 percent, where it had stood for 14 months as it struggled to curb the worst inflation streak in four decades. Inflation has tumbled from a peak of 9.1 percent in mid-2022 to a three-year low of 2.5 percent in August, not far above the Fed’s 2 percent target.

In an anonymous survey of the central bankers who sit on the Fed’s interest rate policy committee show that Fed leaders expect to make a further 25-basis-point cut when they meet in November and another in December. And four more rate cuts are possible in 2025 and two more in 2026, the survey showed.

But will Wednesday’s cut help the sluggish New Hampshire housing market or its challenged housing development sector? The picture is mixed.

First, Granite State housing market-watchers are skeptical the cuts will draw many prospective sellers off the sidelines, as The Registry Review reported earlier this month.

Average mortgage rates have already dropped to an 18-month low of 6.2 percent as bond traders anticipated the Fed’s actions, according to Freddie Mac, spurring a jump in demand for refinancings.

And real estate developers and banking experts say rates would need to come down further to make many financing for the stalled housing developments pencil out but it could nudge some developers to resurrect stalled-but-approved projects in anticipation of lower rates.

However, this month’s cut and others planned this year might make it harder for some investors who were planning to take advantage of commercial property distress by enabling at least some owners to refinance, CBRE experts said in a public conference call following the Fed’s announcement.

“Does this affect their effort to execute that strategy? Yes, it does,” said the commercial brokerage’s global chief economist and head of Americas research Richard Barkham.

While the total cuts to the Fed’s benchmark short-term interest rate expected by the end of the year will help banks with troubled office loans on their books, and will lead to a “modest improvement in the cost of capital” for multifamily developers, Barkham said, most banks will still be limited in their ability to finance acquisitions, refinance existing buildings or lend for new development.

“We’re seeing continued caution on the part of the banks in lending to real estate…but there’s a lot of alternative [private] capital out there,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to see an explosion. I do think we’re going to see a very meaningful uptick in investment activity.”

Barkham put that potential growth at 10 percent to 20 percent.