In this weekly market update, Jordan Keck greets viewers and shares optimism for the spring home‑buying season, noting a recent surge in buyer activity after sunny weather. He reports a modest decline in mortgage rates from 7.02% to 6.96% and uses the segment to address the ongoing NAR lawsuit settlement, emphasizing gratitude toward realtors and warning about negative public perception. Keck announces a new book‑club focused on Unreasonable Hospitality and invites participants via Zoom or Facebook. He then summarizes the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, which left the overnight funds rate unchanged, hinted at future rate cuts (three 0.25% cuts expected, first possibly in June), and discussed balance‑sheet reduction that could benefit mortgage bonds. The update moves to housing data: February existing home sales rose 9.5% month‑over‑month (still down 3.3% YoY) driven by improved weather and a 6% inventory increase, though national inventory remains low at 2.6 million homes. Housing starts jumped 10.7% in February, with single‑family starts up 11.6% MoM and 35.2% YoY, indicating a shift back from previous multifamily focus. Multifamily supply growth may temper rent increases. CoreLogic’s January rental report shows rents up 2.6% YoY, a slight slowdown from the prior month, while CPI’s shelter component still shows a 5.7% YoY rise due to data lag. Keck concludes with a call to share the update, offers a guide on market trends, and provides contact information for further resources.
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Good morning and happy Friday. Jordan Keck here, your lender buddy, with your weekly market update. First off, happy spring break to everybody. Hope you've got some great plans here, and especially if we have even just a little bit of a break in the weather, I think there's a good opportunity for people to be looking at homes. I've seen a big jump in activity here as we've gotten a few days of sunshine. And looking into some of the reports for today, I think that there is a huge amount of pent-up demand, so just reason to get excited and optimistic heading into spring and summer buying season. As far as interest rates go, we got a little bit of a drop after bumping up last week, not huge, but still, you know me, I'll take anything we can get. We were at 7.02% last week, down to 6.96% this week according to Mortgage News Daily. As far as weekly mortgage tip, wanted really just to address the NAR lawsuit that's been going on right now, the settlement. There's been a lot of activity about it. And I'll be the first one to say I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a realtor. But I really just wanted to encourage you during this time. You know, there's a lot that's up in the air. It hasn't technically been approved by the courts yet. And there's so many interpretation differences on this. So I'm going through, I think that I have some ideas about how to be able to make things a little simpler, ways that you can strategize around this. But the overall theme that I really wanted to convey is just one of gratitude and recognition for what you do. You're working incredibly hard. This is an industry that has gotten very difficult in recent years. And this, the biggest thing, the biggest drawback I see on this lawsuit is the PR. You know, you're looking at a lot of people who are perceiving realtors in a negative light. I mean, a lot of mortgage lenders went through this after 2008. They were seen as the bad guys. And it's taken a long time to start recovering from that. Right now, I think a big unified push for around what is the value of realtors, talking about the stories of people who have been helped from your services on it. And just again, personally for me, thank you. You know, I look at the times where I work with, it's a for sale by owner, or if you've got a buyer who's buying without the use of an agent, it's so much easier when you are involved. Because you're keeping the transaction smooth. You're preventing problems before they even happen. So thank you for what you do. And again, watch, I have, I'm putting together some materials. I want to get a better grasp on it. I'm going through reading the settlement myself. Um, but I plan to have some, either a class or some resources put together in the future on that one. So be in touch, watch for that one. Next, I also wanted to touch on, it's not in the bullet points, but Putting together a book club for starting off. Um, we're going to have a Zoom and an in-person separate days and different times. So if you're interested in that, the first book we're going through is Unreasonable Hospitality. Absolutely awesome book. I've gone through it probably 4 or 5 times. So if you'd love to be able to go through that together with a great group, talk about how to apply it into business and just get a chance to nerd out on some book reading together, Audible or physical, either way works. Let me know. Happy to send you an invite to that. There's a Facebook group going, and if you're not on Facebook, happy to send you a Zoom link or a calendar invite for that. And then going into our updates here, the Federal Reserve did meet this week and they decided to leave their overnight funds rate unchanged at this meeting. So they— this wasn't really a surprise for us, pardon me, but they did talk about that they believe inflation has started to come down more but they do hope it comes down even further because what they don't want to do is start cutting their interest rates too soon, and then that leads to more inflation overall. The forecast right now is for 3 rate cuts for the year of each 0.25%, with the most likely first cut being at their meeting in June. Federal Fed President Powell did also talk a lot more dovishly at this most recent meeting, saying that even though they're not necessarily cutting their rates yet, they are also looking at cutting their balance sheet or reducing their balance sheet, which will help for mortgage bonds. So he said that that's likely going to be happening very soon or fairly soon. So keep an eye out for that. But that could be helping interest rates. Next up, we have existing home sales for the month of February. Those rose 9.5% for the month of February alone compared to January. So big spike there. That's— we're now down over only 3.3% year over year. So why the big spike? I think you've got a number of reasons. One, you've got— and then this is existing home sales, so under contract, um, excuse me, not pending home sales. Pending home sales, under contract. Existing home sales is going to be closed. Um, it was much stronger than the 1.5% decline that was expected, and part of it I think is because of weather. Part of it, you did see a big bump in supply And so the more homes you have available, you've still got a lot of demand. So now people are actually able to buy homes that they might have been looking for for months. Inventory did increase 6% month over month, which helped to cause that surge. And currently there's still only about 2.6 million homes in inventory nationally, and that's not even counting the ones that are already under contract. So very, very low number. And I think we're going to still continue to see that upward pressure on prices. So definitely want to make sure our clients are getting off the fence. And if you haven't already seen my guide about looking at the markets in 2023 and 2024, how to talk through them with prices and rates, let me know. Happy to send that to you or do a personalized class because this is definitely the time to get those clients off of the fence. As long as they can afford it, they can qualify for it, and they can find the right house. Next up, housing starts. This rose 10.7% for the month of February, while permits rose 1.9% for the month. Now remember, permits are of course not having started the process, housing starts are breaking ground, and then completions are obviously when the home is done. Starts are now up 5% year over year, and of those, single-family taking the vast majority of the increase at 11.6% increase month over month for the single-family out of the total housing starts, and single-family now up 35.2% year over year. Single-family permits also rose 1% for the month and are up 29.5% year over year, showing a big shift from the multifamily push that we saw in the previous years where builders moved away from single-family for a time, moved to multifamily, and now it looks like they are coming back. This is good news for future supply. and as far as the multifamily, having that extra supply online will hopefully be able to help slow down rent increases. Now that we've got a little bit more available and not as much demand going for those multifamily, there could still be future pressure as the multifamily building slows down. So we'll keep an eye on that in the future. And lastly here, CoreLogic's rental report came out for the month of January showing rents up 2.6%. Year over year. This is a decrease from the previous month, which showed up 2.8% year over year. And remember, this is a blended rate of both new rents and existing rents that are getting renewed. Now, the interesting thing is the latest CPI, the Consumer Price Index report, this showed shelter costs, or the basically the rent component, up about 5.7%, when we're only showing 2.6% in real time. So the reason for that is because you've got a big lag in the data for CPI. So as we're seeing these lower numbers in real time, it's going to take a little bit while longer for CPI to reflect it. But hopefully that's good news in us continually getting lower inflation numbers in the future because they're catching up to the numbers we already see low on that shelter component side. Oh, hopefully as always, this is helpful for you. If you have anybody you're thinking that would be benefited from from getting this copy of this update, feel free, you can send it to them. There's the link down below to subscribe. I'm also happy if you wanna make a connection to be able to get them added myself. Again, let me know, feel free to text, call, or email if you wanna get added onto that book club, and I will see you next week. Have a great weekend.
