Jordan Keck delivers a concise weekly market briefing for mortgage professionals and homebuyers. He opens with the latest weekly mortgage rate rise from 6.92% to 7.02% and offers a practical tip to prevent “trigger leads” by registering borrowers’ phone numbers on donotcall.gov, positioning the advice as a differentiator for lenders. Keck then reviews October’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) – 0.2% month‑over‑month, 2.6% year‑over‑year – and highlights core inflation at roughly 3.5%, well above the Fed’s 2% target, noting sharp increases in used‑car and airline‑fare prices. He follows with the Producer Price Index (PPI) data, also up 0.2% month‑over‑month and 2.4% year‑over‑year, explaining the downstream effects on margins and hiring. Mortgage application activity is examined: purchase applications rose 2% week‑over‑week (1% YoY) while refinance applications fell 2% (down 43% YoY), reflecting rate‑driven buyer hesitation and post‑election optimism. Retail sales for October increased 0.4% (core sales down 0.1%), with a strong prior‑month revision, signaling robust consumer demand that could sustain inflation pressures. Finally, Keck shares his personal rate‑forecast philosophy, emphasizing uncertainty, a three‑point decision framework (qualification, affordability, right price), and a clear distinction between predictable home‑price appreciation and volatile interest‑rate movements. He urges professionals to educate clients, avoid conflating rates with prices, and use the presented tools to better serve borrowers.
Chapters
Good morning and happy Friday. Jordan Keck here, your lender buddy, with your weekly market update. Kicking off, interest rates moving up again from 6.92% to 7.02% for the week. As far as mortgage tip here, avoiding trigger leads. So this is something I've talked a little bit about before, but any single time somebody gets their mortgage credit report pulled The credit bureaus are gonna sell their contact information, even if it's not entered for the mortgage. There's nothing they can do about it if the credit bureau already has their information, which if they have a credit score, probably been entered on previous loans that they have done. So when that happens, I've had a few clients who've gotten a dozen calls within a single hour of having their mortgage credit report pulled. So the best thing that they can do is go to donotcall.gov, register their phone number, and that puts them on a list not to have solicitation calls unless they request it. Now, this can take a couple of weeks to process. So the sooner that people get it done, the better. And this is why by the time they get to me, it's usually within a couple of day timeframe of getting pre-approved. So if you can implement into your consultations upfront an additional value piece, tell your clients about this, get them on that do not call list upfront. No one else is really doing this. So it can also help separate you from the rest because you know what's going to be happening. And nobody feels good about a process when they're getting dozens and dozens of calls from spam lenders during that process. So again, talk to your clients about this, get on it yourself. It takes about 30 seconds to register, super easy, free, and you're on there for life. So again, donotcall.gov, talk to your clients about this, implement this in your first conversations so we can get past that timeframe by the time they get to preapproval. Next up, the October CPI, which is the Consumer Price Index inflation report, came in up 2.4% rounded down to 0.2%, which is right in line with expectations. Year-over-year inflation increased though from 2.4% to 2.6%. Even though this was as expected, we are seeing a bit of an acceleration in some of these inflation data reports, which is not great when that's the main driver the Federal Reserve is looking at for determining interest rates. The core rate remained unchanged year over year, and while it might not seem like much, the current annualized core rate, it would be around 3.5%, which is quite a bit more than we've seen in previous months and quite a bit more than the 2% that the Federal Reserve is looking for on a year-over-year basis for their target for inflation. The biggest increases in this report were used cars, which are up 2.7% for the month alone, and airline fares, which were up to 3.2% for the month. Next up, similarly, wholesale inflation number through PPI was up 0.2% as expected, but the annual inflation is similarly, is similarly accelerating as with the consumer inflation. Year-over-year PPI was revised higher for September from 1.8% to 1.9%, and then as of this week's report, year-over-year is up to 2.4%, so getting faster. Now wholesale inflation is prices that producers pay not necessarily passed along to consumers, but the two options really are pass those price increases along to consumers or take a hit in your own margins, which means less hiring, maybe fewer pay increases, or salaries remaining stagnant. Neither of these are really great things overall and not helping us with the lower inflation numbers we are hoping for. Next, mortgage applications for purchases rose 2% last week and refinances fell 2% last week, so fairly stable overall. A lot A lot of this likely just due to the fallout from interest rates continuing to go up. Purchase applications, at least myself, I've seen a lot of additional motivation, a lot of people getting off the fence now that Federal Reserve has cut rates. There's some optimism there that things are going to get better. And now that we have the election behind us, a lot of people who are waiting, putting things on pause, finally getting off the fences moving forward. Purchase applications now just up 1% year over year, and refinances up 43%, quite a bit lower than they used to be because rates have been increasing, with refinances now making up 40% of all transactions. Next we have retail sales for the month of October, up 0.4%, a little higher than the expected 0.3%, but last month's headline figure was also revised higher from 0.4% originally, double that to 0.8%, so big increase there in addition to missing on that headline number. The core retail sales fell 0.1% versus an expected 0.3% gain, so really good on that number for us. but it was pretty overshadowed because of a negative revision to the last month's— or positive, excuse me, a positive revision from 0.7% to 1.2%. So even though we got a better number on the headline that we were looking for, last month's higher revision kind of overshadowed that with more gain than we got on the miss this time. This is showing continued strong retail sales, stronger than expected, and again accelerating. Not really great news for inflation, because the more demand, the more spending there is, that's going to be enough to continue driving prices higher unless it starts to curb demand. And lastly here, my personal prediction on where interest rates will go. I'll preface this by saying I'm going to tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. Everybody online, everybody who's going to be telling you this is exactly when rates are going to drop, here's how much they're going to drop, they're trying to make money on impressions. Same as news agencies, they don't make money By telling you the truth, they make money by getting you to view the information and interact with it. So the most accurate and helpful answer I can give you here to advise your clients as professionals is that no one knows what's going to happen with rates. It was very clear a couple of years ago when rates were at 3% at the end of 2021, and then 7% by September of that next year, that nobody knows, even the best in the world. But with that, that doesn't mean that you're powerless. That actually gives you a position of power. Because if we know that we don't know where rates are going, how do we make decisions now in light of that uncertainty? Well, to me, you've probably heard me say it before, it comes down to 3 things. Can you qualify for the loan? Can you afford the monthly payment in your budget? And can you find the right place and the right price for you? And if you can do all 3 of those things, you're in a good spot to buy now. If you have all those 3 things and you wait, you're really gambling for the market to be better. And that's exactly what it is, gambling. And if you need any of those 3 things, if you can't find the home, you can't qualify, you can't afford it, great. We as professionals can work with that, get you to a spot where you can, and we'll follow up down the line when that time comes around. And the last thing to touch on here, I've heard a lot of people confusing interest rates with home prices. See, home prices are predictable. Predictable in the sense that over time, since our economy is based on inflation, it means based on prices continuing to go up. Home prices will go up over time. That's just the way that it is. Now, obviously there's going to be some variation. They might drop a little bit here or there, you know, a certain region. Your particular home might have a new, uh, waste treatment facility putting in next door. It's going to affect your value. But as a whole, prices will always go up. It's the reason you can't get gas for a quarter for a gallon anymore. It's the reason you can't buy homes for $20,000 anymore. It's always going to go up over time. Prices are predictable. Interest rates are not. Interest rates, they could stay at 7% for the next 10 years. They could drop down to 5%. They could drop to 1%. They could go up to 10%. You know, 50 years ago, we saw interest rates go as high as 18% or more in some cases. So don't confuse, and don't allow your clients to confuse, interest rates with prices and thinking that, oh, they've got to drop at some point. No, they don't. Interest rates do not have to drop. If they do, if they don't, is completely irrelevant to the decision because we have no idea where it's going to go. So again, keep those things in mind. Make sure you're educating yourself and your clients about these. And if there's anything you would like me to cover in more depth or give thoughts on, I'm finding a lot of people have found it helpful just to chat through even some of the conversations they're having, how to be able to have those conversations. And always happy to help you out, give you another tool in the tool belt to make sure you're doing a great job for your clients. As always, hopefully this is helpful. Have a fantastic weekend. We'll see you next time. Take care.
