In this solo video, mortgage professional Jordan Keck delivers a comprehensive weekly market briefing. He opens by noting a modest rise in average mortgage rates from 7.44% to 7.52% and reminds viewers that Memorial Day (May 27) is a federal holiday, so loan closings should be scheduled around it. Keck then explains the rules for using gift funds, highlighting how donor eligibility and documentation differ among conventional, FHA, and VA loans, and stressing the need for a gift letter and donor bank‑statement for FHA loans due to anti‑money‑laundering regulations. He moves to housing‑market data: new‑home sales jumped 8.8% and pending sales rose 3.4% in March, both far exceeding expectations; inventory figures are clarified, noting that while total new‑home listings increased, only a small fraction are completed and thus truly available. Keck reviews the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation report, noting a flat 0.3% month‑over‑month increase, a year‑over‑year rise to 2.7% (core 2.8%), and highlights personal spending and a declining savings rate as inflation drivers. He cites CoreLogic’s February loan‑insight report, showing mortgage delinquencies holding steady or slipping slightly (30‑day delinquency 2.8%, 90‑day delinquency down to 0.9%, foreclosures unchanged at 0.3%). Finally, he discusses the Federal Reserve and Treasury’s upcoming bond‑buy‑back program, explaining how it can add liquidity and help keep Treasury yields—and thus mortgage rates—lower, even if the Fed delays rate cuts. Keck closes with a call‑to‑action, inviting viewers to subscribe, reach out for pre‑approval or second‑opinion assistance, and wishes them a good weekend.
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Good morning and happy Friday. Jordan Keck here, your lender buddy, with your weekly market update. Starting off, interest rates moving up a little bit more this week from 7.44% last week to 7.52% this week. Also want to give you a reminder that next month in May, Monday the 27th is Memorial Day, which is a federal holiday. So be sure to take that into account when writing contracts, just to make sure that you're not planning closings for that day, and that you give some time if needed for closings that are going to be around that. As far as our weekly mortgage tip this week, I want to talk through eligible donors for gift funds. So when either co-signing on a loan or giving a gift, each loan type will have their own restrictions as far as who is able to do that. And with gift funds, there's always going to be a requirement regardless of the type of loan that that person giving funds is in some way related or connected to the borrower. So if there are, you know, as little as having a very close family friend with a documented relationship can be eligible in some cases. But that's not always necessarily going to be the case between conventional or FHA. And then VA, of course, is going to be the same there. So if you have somebody that you know, that's maybe not a very long history documented friend, or not a family member, they may not actually be eligible to give those gift funds. Other things to keep in mind on that are that on conventional, you usually don't require proof of the donor's bank statement, but on FHA, that is a requirement written into the FHA guidelines regardless of the lender, that if you're going to be giving a gift, you need to provide a copy of your bank statements as a donor to be able to verify where that came from. Definitely intrusive, and so I just always try and make sure that my clients know upfront if they're getting a gift, they're going to be required to have that relationship, have a gift letter signed, and have a proof of the donor's bank statement. And this all stems back to 2008 for anti-money laundering laws. So want to make sure that you're not getting surprised by that if you have a gift coming in last minute. Next up, as far as news this week, we got existing and new home sales coming in, and new home sales rising 8.8%, pending home sales rising 3.4% for the month of March, both blowing expectations out of the water. Very strong showings. February for new home sales was revised lower, and so it did make the gain month over month seem a little bit bigger, but without that revision, still would have come in about 5% up month over month, which is still beating expectations. There were 477,000 new homes for sale in the month of March, which was up from 465,000 in February, but only about 89,000 of those were actually completed. So if you look at the number of months of inventory for new homes, it can be a little deceptive because it's not actually that many months available, it's hey, we're able to build this many, but it doesn't really translate to immediately available inventory on the market. For pending home sales, again rising 3.4% for March versus the expectation of only going up 0.3%, so more than 10 times higher than expected for the month. This is the strongest level of sales as well in the last 13 months, and sales now flat year over year, whereas in the previous report they were down 7% year over year. So we might, for the first time in a while, actually start seeing some positive year-over-year existing home sale numbers in coming reports. Next up, PCE inflation came in flat, came in for March at the expected 0.3%, and year-over-year went up from 2.5% to 2.7%. So it's pretty close to expectations, a little bit hotter on it. The core rate rose 0.3%, which is after you strip out food and energy prices, and year-over-year remained at 2.8%. but it was expected to drop to 2.7%. So again, still just a little bit hotter than expected. Of the component, personal spending is one of the areas that was causing a little bit of trouble, showing still up 0.8% month over month, which continues to hurt us on inflation because as high as rates and the costs have been, spending is continuing to increase at a pretty rapid rate here. And savings rate also down to a low of 3.2%, which is the lowest since almost 2 years ago in October of 2022. Next up, CoreLogic's Loan Insight Report for February showed mortgage delinquencies either remained flat or dropped within this report. So staying very strong. Those that were 30 days late or more remained at 2.8%. So no change there. And those 90 days late or greater for mortgages actually fell from 1% to 0.9%. So dropping a 10th there. Those in foreclosure stayed at 0.3%. It's been very, very stable for a long time. So even though we're seeing credit card and car loan delinquencies continually increase, it's nice to know at least the mortgage market is still very strong and those delinquencies staying low. And then lastly here, both the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury announced that they'll soon be buying back bonds or treasuries, adding additional liquidity liquidity into the market or helping be able to keep some rates low. And this is a nice little tool here because rates ultimately come from supply and demand in the market for the bond market, and Treasuries are really tightly connected. So the Federal Reserve or, and/or the Treasury actually being able to buy some of those will be able to help keep those interest rates low beyond just their ability to cut interest rates. So they can affect supply and demand. They can affect the rates directly, which kind of still affects the supply and demand at different rates there. So while we have been hearing that the Fed isn't really ready to start cutting their interest rates yet and, you know, maybe slowing down or not having as many cuts as we originally expected, that's just one of the tools. And so this is some good news that we don't really know the exact numbers yet, but we might start getting a little bit of relief if and when this starts happening, depending on the overall amount. So some potential good news there, a little bit of hope on the horizon. In the meantime, again, looking at all of the strength in the market here, definitely seeing things starting to heat up going into some of the sunnier months. And so if you or anybody you know is interested in getting, get more of this great information, feel free to pass this along to them. They can subscribe with the button down below, or just let me know. Happy to get them added. And if you have anybody you're needing second opinion on, needing to get pre-approved, or any creative solutions, reach out to me. You know, my contact information is below. You can call or text on my cell, and happy to help out evenings or weekends most times as well. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. We'll see you next time. Take care.
