Market Update- Rates, retail sales, Fannie Mae study, builder sentiment, and jobless claims

Good morning and happy Friday. Jordan Keck here, your lender buddy, with your weekly market update. Before anything else, do want to let you know, as it mentioned in the email, I will be out of the office tomorrow through Wednesday. So during that time, Tyler on my team, as always, will be covering for me. You'll have access to my emails, you'll have access to all of my files, all of my notes, so it should be able to move forward without a hitch. Can also be available on the weekend. So if you need anybody to get pre-approved or send out pre-approval letters, make sure to reach out to him. You can call or text his cell phone number in the email, um, details for his email and cell phone in the email below. So I'm looking forward to being away for a little bit. It's my 12-year anniversary, so, uh, spending some time together, also getting a chance to see my sister and get in a couple-day conference. So putting a bunch of it together there. Appreciate the time away. And again, my team does a phenomenal job, so be able to move anything forward in the meantime while I'm gone. As far as the updates this week, interest rates pretty flat, going from 6.82% to 6.81% week over week. And, uh, you know, at this point, still not a whole lot of volatility, but definitely moving in the right direction. So we will take that. And then for our mortgage tip, also want to give an update at the same time. USDA increased their annual income limits, which is the maximum amount of income you can make as household before tax and still be able to qualify for a USDA loan. So it now moved up effective immediately. The base went from— excuse me, went up to $112,450. And that is for a family of 4. If you're a family of 5 or more, there is a higher limit on that one. Remember, this is for total household income, not just the income on the loan. So if you're looking at qualifying with one person, but let's say another spouse isn't going to be on the loan. In that situation, you still have to account for their income if they're part of the household. Same if you have family members that are living with you, even children, grown children, or that are working. If they have income, that has to be taken into account for that total number. Next up, the June retail sales number came in unchanged, so flat month over month. But May was revised higher, up by 0.2%. The number moved from 0.1% to 0.3%, making today's report a lot stronger. And then core retail sales rose 0.9%, which is also a lot stronger than estimates and may lead to higher GDP readings. Fannie Mae's study next up showed only about 10% of consumers actually know you can buy a home with 5% down or less. Now, this is something that we've continually fought against in the industry is the misinformation out there. A lot of people think that you need 20% down or more, and that's simply not true. So great opportunity still for so many people here. Again, less than 10% or only 10% of consumers know you can buy a home with 5% down or less. But what's crazy is when they looked at it, even of those actively shopping for a home, only 14% knew that you can buy a home for 5% down or less. The median amount of people think that they need 15 to 20%, but most simply don't have a clue how much they need for down payment. So again, want to make sure that we take that opportunity. It seems normal for us in the industry, but it's still not information most people know in the general market. Next up, the NAHB Builder Sentiment Survey for July fell 1 point to 42. With 50 or below signaling contraction. Future— the components of that total report: future expectations rose 1 point to 48, but current sales fell 1 point to 47, and buyer traffic fell 1 point to 27. Remember, anything on those below 50 signals contraction, anything above 50 signals expansion. Within the— they also saw housing permits rose from their 4-year lows but all of that was due to multifamily. So single-family not seeing a lot more. Single-family permits and starts both fell for the month of July. And lastly here, initial jobless claims just saw a big jump of 20,000 for the week to 243,000 initial first-time jobless claims and to the highest levels we've seen in the past 11 months. Continuing claims also rose 20,000 to 1.867 million, which is the highest in almost the last 3 years since November of 2021, after an already high number last week. So going into the next week here, almost crazy to think that we're almost in August. But again, want to make sure that you know my team is available. Tyler, call or text him on his cell if you need anything over the weekend, or in the evenings, he will be available for you. And thank you again for just— it'd be a chance to take this time away for my anniversary. We'll see you next time. Take care.