In this weekly market update, Jordan Keck provides a concise snapshot of current mortgage rates, a specialized mortgage product, recent U.S. trade negotiations, and key housing‑market and labor‑market statistics for June 2025. He notes that the top‑tier mortgage rate remains steady at 6.81% (including origination fees) and introduces DSCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio) loans that allow investors to qualify without personal income documentation, highlighting their structure, eligibility (1‑10 unit properties, possible mixed‑use up to 30%), and typical terms (30‑year fixed with a 10‑year interest‑only period). Keck then outlines recent U.S. trade activity, citing a new deal with Japan and ongoing talks with the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the EU, and mentions the August 12 tariff deadline that may be extended. He reviews June existing‑home sales, which fell 2.7% to a 3.93 million‑unit annualized pace, with a 4.7‑month inventory, 27 days on market, and buyer composition (30% first‑time, 16% investors, 29% cash). He follows with new‑home data, noting a modest 0.6% rise to 627 k units, a high inventory of 511 k homes (only 119 k completed), and explains the 5% month‑over‑month drop in median price as a shift toward lower‑priced sales rather than a price decline. Finally, he reports labor‑market figures: initial jobless claims fell to 217 k, while continuing claims rose to 1.955 million, marking a prolonged period of elevated long‑term unemployment. Keck closes by inviting viewers to share the update and suggest future topics.
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Good morning and happy Friday. Jordan Keck here, your lender buddy, with your weekly market update. The last Friday of July. Hard to believe that next Friday is already August, but here we are. Kicking off with interest rates unchanged week over week at 6.81%. And again, this is per Mortgage News Daily, looking at the top tier scenario for the best clients. with a little bit of origination fees included with that. So not a quote, but just an indication of where market rates are moving week to week. As far as our mortgage tip this week, wanted to talk about no income investment property loans through DSCR. Now, if you've got a 1 to 10 unit property with a client, they're looking to buy, use it as an investment property. And maybe they're an entrepreneur, their business taxes don't show great. Maybe somebody doesn't have a ton of personal income to show. Well, these DSCR loans, based on the debt service coverage ratio, or the income over expenses for that property, is all that is needed. The ability to repay requirement that came out after 2008, that is satisfied because the property is able to cover itself, and we don't have to look at personal tax returns, pay stubs, income statements, you name it. So if you've got a 1 to 10 unit property investment someone's looking to purchase, let me know. We can walk through see if that's an option. It's nice because it's kind of quasi-commercial where they can close in the name of an LLC. They can still get a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage or have a combination of an interest-only period followed by— typically that's a 10-year interest-only period— by a 20 or 30-year fixed loan term at the end of that. So pretty cool product. Got a lot of clients that have been going through those lately, especially for those 1 to 10 unit residential properties. Sometimes it can do a little mixed use if the mixed use portion is typically under 30% of the total. So if there's 10 units total, 7 of them are residential, 3 of them are retail or commercial, can sometimes make that work. So there's a few exceptions in there. Next, the US announced a trade deal with Japan and several other countries here. This follows trade deals with the Philippines and Indonesia, and talks are happening between US and Taiwan and also the US and the European Union for possible trade deals coming soon. There's a current deadline of August 12th for tariffs to be implemented unless a trade deal gets reached, but because there's conversations going, there's expectations that that could get extended further if talks are going well. June's existing home sales numbers fell 2.7% to a 3.93 million annualized pace, and this was below— is quite a bit worse than the 0.7% drop that was expected. so we're a full 2% beyond that, likely reflecting the higher interest rates from homebuyers that were shopping in April and May. Nationally, there's a 4.7-month supply of homes, slightly above the 4.6-month supply that we saw in May. The average days on market was 27, with 21% of homes selling for above list price. First-time homebuyers made up 30% of all buyers for the month, investors made up 16%, and cash purchases were 29% of all homes purchased. June new home sales rose 0.6% to a 627,000 annualized pace. Now, if you look at some of the numbers on this, it's interesting because they show that there were 511,000 new homes for sale at the end of June. Pretty high monthly supply rate based on absorption and over the highest since about 2007. But only 119,000 of those 511,000 homes were actually completed and available inventory now. Homes that were still under construction were 271,000, and there was 121 that haven't even been started. So really, they're just, they're just clippings in a magazine to say, hey, if you like this, we can start construction, but it's going to be 6, 9, 12 months before that home actually comes on the market. Median home price dropped almost 5% from month over month. But take this into account as well. That doesn't mean that home prices are dropping. It means that more people bought lower-priced homes than higher-priced homes in that particular month. You'll see headlines about the median home price going from maybe $422,700 to $401,800. But again, not a decline in prices. There was about 500— or excuse me, there was 5,000 more homes that sold in the $300,000 range and 5,000 less homes that sold above $500,000, so it just skews the median or the midpoint as far as where those homes were for the month. And lastly, initial jobless claims fell 4,000 for the first-time filers for the week to 217,000, and continuing claims rose by 4,000 to a total of 1.955 million. This is the 9th week in a row with continuing claims being above that $1.9 million elevated level, and the highest level in about the past 4 years since 2021, basically at the tail end of those COVID numbers, showing that as employees get laid off or as they leave work, it's harder and harder for them to find work again. So employees typically aren't getting let go as much. We see initial claims very low, but once they are let go, harder time getting back into the workforce. So as always, hopefully this is helpful. Feel free to pass it along to somebody you may know who would like to get these updates. Or let me know if there's certain topics you'd like me to cover. Happy to keep you in the loop and stay on top of it myself. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next time. Take care.
