John Irmen, Retail Sales Manager NMLS #737228

05/04/2022

Today brought the much-anticipated policy announcement from the Federal Reserve.  Many people mistakenly believe that the Fed's present day decisions to hike/cut its policy rate (the "Fed Funds R...

04/29/2022

"Here are the inventory milestones I’m watching for:

The seasonal bottom (already happened)

Inventory up year-over-year (likely mid-year 2022)

Inventory up compared to two years ago (currently down 36%)

Inventory back to median for last decade (currently down 43%)"

Inventory is key

04/20/2022

The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) latest weekly mortgage application data shows an ongoing and unsurprising decline in refinance applications.  The index is nearly back to its most recent ...

04/19/2022

https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2022/04/lawler-corelogic-home-purchases-by-non.html

"Note that in the second half of last year total home purchases were down just 3.1% from the second half of 2020, while non-investor purchases were down 14.4%."

From housing economist Tom Lawler: Below is a table showing CoreLogic’s data on home purchases (using its extensive property records datab...

04/05/2022

"Month-end active inventory went up 81.16 percent from February to March. The additional 995 new listings on the market at the end of the month also served to slightly aid the balance of supply and demand. While the percentage increase is substantially higher, having such low initial numbers yield a higher percent change. Along with the 43.57 percent increase in new listings, this will serve to help balance the accelerated price appreciation the market has recently seen. "

Inventory up 81% from February, up 10% Year-over-year

04/01/2022

https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2022/04/it-is-change-in-monthly-payment-that.html

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: It is the Change in Monthly Payment that Matters Excerpt: Yesterday I pointed that w...

03/30/2022

"Sales-adjusted inventory levels are at a near balanced 6.3 months’ supply in February. The count of completed, ready-to-occupy new homes is just 35,000 homes nationwide.

Total inventory (for all stages of construction) increased to 407,000, a 33% gain from February 2021."

New single-family home sales posted a second monthly decline in February as housing demand was affected by a jump in mortgage rates. After starting at 3.1% in December, rates increased to 3.45% in January and 3.76% in February, per Freddie Mac. Additionally, builders continue to grapple with supply-...

03/28/2022

Guide to Market Data: https://bit.ly/altos-ebookDemo Altos: https://altosresearch.com/contactAltos Research is the premier resource for real-time real estate...

03/22/2022

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/22/mortgage-rates-are-surging-faster-than-expected-prompting-economists-to-lower-their-home-sales-forecasts.html

“Rates have a small chance to top out before hitting 5% and a good chance of topping out before hitting 6%,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. “It is a rapidly moving target in this environment, where we legitimately and unexpectedly find ourselves needing to be concerned with inflation for the first time since the 1980′s.”

Mortgage rates are rising far faster than economists had predicted, and some are now revising their home sales forecasts lower as a result.

03/18/2022

https://www.corelogic.com/intelligence/potential-risks-of-price-declines-in-the-real-estate-market/

"The risk for price decline, however, remains higher in the Northeast, the West and the Southwest and is generally driven by a higher rate of unemployment, lower income growth and/or a lower rate of population growth."

Although home price gains are expected to slow in 2022 and average a little less than 10% growth for the year, the recent rapid acceleration in prices has led to overvaluations in some markets, therefore pushing up the risk of price decline in the year ahead.

03/17/2022

"For those tuning in to daily rate changes, Freddie's +0.31 increase in 30yr fixed rates is old news. Adjusting for the 0.8 points of upfront cost in the survey numbers, the "no points" effective rate would be closer to 4.41% we reported on Monday. Since then, the average 30yr has moved up another 0.09%, ultimately hitting 4.5% today for the first time since March 5, 2019. In other words, we now officially have the highest rates in 3 years."

It was potentially a very boring or interesting day for mortgage rates , depending on where you get your news and how tuned in you were to yesterday's news.  In fact, rates moved up to new m...

03/16/2022

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/16/new-federal-reserve-projections-show-six-more-rate-hikes-this-year.html

"As of midday Wednesday, markets implied seven total 25-basis point hikes by the end of the year as the most likely outcome, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. The latest CNBC Fed Survey showed that respondents expected an average of 4.7 hikes this year. "

The Federal Reserve released its updated dot plot and latest projections for economic growth and inflation on Wednesday.