The economic factor that hits mortgage rates the worst is inflation.  Inflation has been going crazy this year, and thus mortgage rates have been going significantly higher.  This week the economic data shows inflation is cooling somewhat and mortgage rates are reacting accordingly, going down.  Finally! Other good things have been happening here in the…

May 2022 is the first time since before March 2020 that total home sales in a month have returned to pre-pandemic numbers.  That is significant.  Before the pandemic began in March 2020, house sales were about 5.4 million per month.  During March, April and May of 2020, those numbers dropped to almost zero as panic…

Between Friday and Today mortgage rates have jumped a solid 1.0%.  From about 5.0% to 6.0% in two days.  Have mortgage rates done this before.  Yes, they have.  In March 2020 in response to the lock down of the COVID-19 pandemic we saw similar volatility.  But these types of wild swings higher or lower are…

From the middle of 2019 through early 2021, housing inventory declined increasingly fast.  The worst decline occurred in early 2021 when year to year inventory fell a whopping 55% due to unrelenting Covid-19-induced demand. Since then, the declines have steadily shrunk, to -30% in January 2022, to zero in early May and now up 11%…

It is not news that there is a housing shortage.  However, some recent studies show that the shortages is many markets is more severe than previously estimated.  In many of the hottest markets, there is less than a two month supply of homes on the market.  Meaning, if all homes that are for sale are…

Not surprisingly, applications for home loans have declined rapidly since mortgage interest rates have climbed.  How much?  Here are some interesting statistics: Weekly applications are at the lowest level since December 2018. This week was the third consecutive week of declines, indicating the housing market is also slowing down. Refinance applications are down 75% from…

The Mortgage Bankers Association produced a survey of weekly mortgage applications and it shows new applications have slowed considerably.  With the recent rise in interest rates, this should be be surprising to anyone.  Higher rates discourage refinances since many homeowners already have locked in super low rates they obtained over the last two years.  And…

For the past two weeks mortgage rates have been moving downward, ever so slowly.  But this is often the case.  Mortgage rates generally rise much faster than they go down.  Compared to how much they have gone up (about 2.5% over the last 3 months) the .25% move lower isn’t much, but we will take…

We all know the supply of homes is very low.  We need housing.  So contractors have been extremely busy the last few years.  In fact, most contractors I have talked to will say they aren’t even taking new projects.  They are booked out for at least 2 years. More housing permits are being filed for…

Mortgage Interest Rates are doing much better than we have seen in the last couple months.  It’s been such a bumpy ride, watching rates go up and up and up since around February.  For them to steady off and actually go down a little has been a breath of mortgage fresh air. The bond market…