In this weekly market update, lender Jordan Keck shares several key points: he announces winning the silver award for Best Home Mortgage 2024 in the Willamette Valley, and thanks voters. He notes that mortgage interest rates edged up slightly from 6.97% to 7.02% after a relatively flat week. Keck explains a rare scenario—only three occurrences in the past decade—where an appraisal waiver is revoked before closing due to potential repair concerns, using a condo example where the HOA reported structural issues, prompting the underwriter to require an appraisal. He then reports the NAHB Home Builders Association Confidence Index fell two points to 43 in June, moving into contraction, with sales, future expectations, and buyer traffic also slipping below the 50 expansion threshold. Housing starts in May dropped 5.5% (19.3% YoY), with single‑family and multifamily starts nearly equal, and completions fell 8.4% (single‑family 8.5%). Retail sales declined 0.1% for the month, below estimates, while core retail sales rose 0.4% but also missed forecasts, suggesting a slowdown in consumer spending that could ease inflation pressures. Rental data show CoreLogic and Truflation reporting year‑over‑year rent growth of about 3%, lower than the CPI’s 5.3% figure, indicating a possible lag in official data. Existing home sales fell 0.7% in May (2.8% YoY), with inventory rising 6.7% to 1.28 million units (3.7‑month supply) and days on market steady at 24. Finally, Keck promotes his community “Poker Night” events, inviting listeners to join waiting or invite lists. The update blends data points, market interpretation, and personal engagement.
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Good morning and happy Friday. Jordan Keck here, your lender buddy, with your weekly market update. And I wanted to just say thank you. First off, I can now officially say it. I was voted the silver winner for the Best of the Willamette Valley Awards for Best Home Mortgage 2024. Thank you for everybody who voted for me on that one. Great. Just privileged to be included in that. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. Be seeing some posts on that. And then whenever the results are posted, um, I believe they're already posted online, but then if you get a physical copy, you'll be able to see me in there as well. So thank you so much for that. As far as interest rates this week, interest rates moving up slightly, basically just giving up the ground we had last week. It was pretty level week overall, not a whole lot of huge news, and we also had the holiday midweek which slowed things down. So moving from 6.97% up to 7.02%. Weekly Mortgage Tip this week, had a weird scenario happen that I thought it'd be worth sharing about. So it's very, very rare. But in the last decade, I've had the situation happen maybe 3 times, where if you start with an appraisal waiver, you actually could lose that appraisal waiver before closing and need to order an appraisal. Often what happens, at least 2 of those 3 times, and what happened this time was, and there's information that the underwriter has available showing that there might be potential repairs needed, or that the condition of the home may not be up to snuff. So for example, if there's a copy of a repair addendum showing that there are significant repairs needed, maybe it's just something like, you know, sellers to pay $10,000 to buyers' closing costs in lieu of major roof repair, right? Just using an example. That's something that the underwriter can look at and say, oh, well, if that's the case, we're not going to use the appraisal waiver. We're going to need an appraisal to confirm the condition of the property is not significantly hindered in terms of safety, structure, or soundness of integrity of the property. So in this one, it was actually a condo, and the homeowners association, they answered that there was major structural or safety repairs needed in other parts of the project. So because of that, the underwriter made the discretionary decision to require an appraisal on our unit to confirm that it was not being affected by those repairs because they were involving structural integrity or the safety of some other properties there. So just know that it does happen. It is rare, but also being sure that you're aware if the listing itself talks about there being, you know, poor condition to the property, if the pictures online showing it's not that great, those could all be possibilities that you might end up losing that appraisal waiver in that transaction. So just be aware of that. Next up here, the NAHB Home Builders Association Confidence Index for June, it did fall 2 points to 43, signaling deeper contraction. Anything above 50 signals expansion, anything below 50 is contraction, and this is the lowest reading in about the last 6 months. The biggest reasons are higher rates for buyers and also higher rates for construction and development loans, which eat away both on the buyer side at the traffic, you know, having more demand for the homes, and then on the builder side, their loans cutting into their margins and less profit available. Current sales from this report fell 3 points to 48, which moved it from expansion to contraction. Future Expectations Index fell 4 points to 47, which also pushed it from expansion to contraction. And buyer traffic, already pretty deep, fell 2 points to 28. Next up, housing starts fell 5.5% in May to be down 19.3% year over year. Single-family starts of that were down pretty much the same, 5.2%. So multifamily and single-family now pretty similar as far as those numbers. And year over year, single-family starts are down 1.7%. Completions fell 8.4% for the month. Single-family again matched that at 8.5% down for for the month. Next up, retail sales. This is a big one that really factors into inflation components. Fell 0.1% for the month, which is below estimates of 0.2%, and last month was also revised lower from flat to being -0.2%. Core retail sales rose 0.4%, but is still below estimates of 0.5%. Last month was also revised lower from -0.3% to -0.5%. 5, even highlighting more that the increase this month from the previous one was— it shows higher than it would have actually been without that negative revision. This is a good showing for customer— this is a good show of consumer spending because consumer spending, one of the major components of inflation, showing that the slower that consumer spending goes, you know, the more it decelerates. Hopefully we get a little bit of reprieve on the inflation side as well. which can be one of the main factors in potentially reducing interest rates down the road. And lastly here, we've got, excuse me, two more things. So CoreLogic's rental report for April showed blended rates for both new and existing rents up 3% year over year. This was also matched by reports from Truflation showing a similar number at 2.75%, and just a little bit lower on CoreLogic's last report was at 3.4%, showing that this is decelerating a little bit. The CPI inflation report is still showing rents up about 5.3%, so pretty significantly, almost double what the actual real-time numbers are. So hopefully this is just due to the lag in the data and that we may see this catch up and give us again a little bit of reprieve on the inflation side. And lastly here, existing home sales fell 0.7% for May. This is actually better than expectations and now down about 2.8% year over year. Inventory decreased— excuse me, increased 6.7% for the month of May to be at 1.28 million units nationwide, which is about a 3.7-month supply. Average days on market remained steady at 24, same as last month, which is the lowest in several months after coming off 28 and then I believe 33 in the previous months before that. Hopefully, as always, this is helpful for you. If you haven't already gotten signed up for Poker Night, that is filled up. So if you're interested, let me know. I can either get you added on the waiting list for this next Friday or get you on the invite list for future events. Hopefully going to be doing this a lot more regularly, but definitely excited to see everybody who got a chance to get in, got a seat for that. Should be a fantastic time. Have a great rest, rest of your week. Next week, the last one for the month, and we'll see you again soon. Take care.
