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Falling mortgage could be bringing out more homebuyers, according to a handful of new data reports.

Purchase mortgage applications rising 3 percent across America last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said, following on the heels of another weekly decline in mortgage rates – to 6.15 percent, according to Freddie Mac.

“Homebuying activity remains tepid, but if rates continue to fall and home prices cool further, we expect to see potential buyers come back into the market. Many have been waiting for affordability challenges to subside,” MBA deputy chief economist Joel Kan said in a statement.

The average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage soared from 6.7 percent at the start of October to 7.08 percent for the seven days ending Nov. 10, the highest it had been in years. Then, over the course of November it slowly slid down through mid-December to 6.27 percent before rising to 6.48 percent as the month closed.

That decline added around $200 to the median American’s homebuying budget, Redfin researchers said in a report this week that said pending home sales were up 2.9 percent nation-wide on a seasonally-adjusted basis.

“Along with the dollar decline in monthly payments, rates traveling down instead of up are helping some sidelined buyers get back into a house-hunting mindset,” Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao said in a statement.

However, the inventory crunch in Connecticut markets may be helping keep pending home sales suppressed. Redfin reported active listings in the New Haven area were down 18 percent year-over-year. And the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors reported that single-family inventory in its territory fell 28.66 percent to 600 homes, while the number of condominiums on the market in December fell 24/73 percent to 137. GHAR also said pending single-family sales were down 27.12 percent year-over-year in December, while pending condo sales were off 28.35 percent. And the average time single-family homes spent on the market last month dropped from 31 days to 24 days year-over-year, while that figure for condo listings stayed even.

“As people realize that the 3% rates are not coming back anytime soon, mortgage applications have picked up. What should we expect from the housing market as the spring season is nearing? Generally, home sales activity increases by 33% in March compared to February, with nearly 420,000 homes sold on average in March,” Nadia Evangelou, senior economist and director of real estate research at the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement. “However, in the last couple of years, activity was even busier due to low mortgage rates. Even though rates were rising last March, many buyers were rushing to benefit from the 4% rates during that time. Given low affordability and inventory, activity may not ramp up so fast in the spring season this year, but it will definitely be busier than it currently is. Meanwhile, a stronger housing market could help the U.S. economy to skirt a recession.”