http://bonckandbaker.com/chrismcinturff

Chris McInturff - Loan Officer, 10370 Richmond Avenue #900, Houston, TX (2026)

09/15/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Mortgage Demand Jumps ⬆️

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

⬆️ Mortgage Demand Jumps to a 3-yr High

A sharp drop in mortgage interest rates finally got some homebuyers off the fence. It also helped more current homeowners save on their monthly payments.

“Mortgage rates declined for the second consecutive week as Treasury yields moved lower on data indicating that the labor market is weakening,” said Joel Kan, MBA economist. “The downward rate movement spurred the strongest week of borrower demand since 2022, with both purchase and refinance applications moving higher.”

💰 Fannie & Freddie IPO Could Be This Year

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested the U.S. government may push forward with an IPO of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2025, potentially making it the largest public offering in history.

He said the goal is to show taxpayers the true market value of the GSEs while keeping mortgage costs low under the Trump administration. Lutnick noted it “could well be a this year thing,” while Trump has floated the idea of merging the two firms under the ticker “MAGA.”

09/08/2025

Mortgage Rates Hit New 2025 Low 🤯

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage dropped 16 basis points to 6.29% on Friday, according to Mortgage News Daily, following the release of a weaker-than-expected August employment report.

It marks the lowest rate since Oct. 3 and the biggest one-day drop since August 2024. Rates are finally breaking out of the high 6% range, where they’ve been stuck for months.

“This was a pretty straightforward reaction to a hotly anticipated jobs report,” said Mortgage News Daily Chief Operating Officer Matt Graham. “It’s a good reminder that the market gets to decide what matters in terms of economic data, and the bond market has a clear voting record that suggests the jobs report is always the biggest potential source of volatility for rates.”

09/02/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Home Sales Gain Annually 🏡

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

🏡 Pending Home Sales Show Slight Annual Gain

Contracts for existing homes fell 0.4% from June but were 0.7% higher than a year earlier. The data reveal divergent trends across the country. Sales in the Northeast and Midwest slipped from the previous month, while the South held steady and the West saw a gain.

🏃 Inflation Outpaces Home Prices

National home prices in June were up only 1.9% year-over-year, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index published Tuesday. This marks the slowest pace since the summer of 2023.

🫵 Trump Moves to Oust Fed’s Lisa Cook

President Trump on Monday said he was taking the extraordinary step of removing Lisa Cook from the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, in a legally uncertain maneuver.

08/25/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Rates at 2025 Lows 📉

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

📉 Rates at 2025 Lows After Powell Remarks

Mortgage rates are at year-to-date lows after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at Jackson Hole that labor market conditions may outweigh inflation in guiding policy.

😬 Insurance Costs Squeezing Housing Affordability

Homeowners insurance premiums are climbing again, further eroding housing affordability already strained by high rates and prices. The national average is projected to rise 8% in 2025 to $3,520, after double-digit increases in recent years, according to Insurify.

🏡 Existing-Home Sales Rise

Sales of previously owned homes saw a modest bump in July, breathing life into a housing market that has struggled under the weight of affordability challenges.

08/18/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Refi Demand Shoots Up 23% 💰

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

💰 Refi Demand Shoots Up 23%

Applications to refinance a home loan jumped 23% for the week and were 8% higher than the same week one year ago. That was the strongest week for refinancing since last April.

💸 Homeowners Turn to Cash-Out Refinancing

Cash-out refinances made up 59% of all refinance transactions in Q2. Remarkably, 70% of those borrowers accepted higher interest rates — averaging a 1.45-point increase — to access an average of $94,000 in home equity.

💪 Buyers Are Back in Charge

In May, 56% of homes sold for less than asking, with the median closing price coming in $45,000 lower than the list price, according to new data from Cotality.

08/12/2025

Mortgage Rates Hit 2025 Low ⬇️

Mortgage rates fell for the third week in a row to their lowest level since April, following a weaker-than-expected July jobs report and downward revisions to early 2025 employment data.

The drop followed a sharp decline in 10-year Treasury yields—often a benchmark for mortgage rates—which fell from 4.36% to 4.22% after the employment data spurred a flight to bonds. Other trackers, including Zillow and Lender Price, similarly reported notable week-over-week declines.

08/04/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Not So Solid Job Market 😬

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

😬 Not So Solid Job Market

Jobs growth nearly stalled in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, with just 73,000 jobs added, well short of forecasts and marking the weakest gain since the pandemic’s early months.

✍️ Trigger-Lead Ban Bill Heads to President's Desk

Under the new law, mortgage lenders and credit issuers may not send trigger-lead offers without explicit consumer consent or an existing relationship, and any unsolicited outreach must include a bona fide credit offer.

🤓 Updated Forecasts

Fannie Mae and the MBA just released updated forecasts for the rest of 2025. While both expect moderate progress, their projections reflect a market still weighed down by high rates and affordability pressures.

07/28/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Price Cuts Surge ✂️🏡

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

✂️ Price Cuts Surge

In June, 26.6% of active listings had a price reduction — the highest share for any June since Zillow began tracking the metric in 2018, and just shy of the all-time record of 27% set in September 2022.

⬆️ New Home Sales Rise

New home sales rose in June amid lower prices and higher supply. Data released yesterday by the Census Bureau showed that sales of new family homes rose 0.60% month-on-month to 627,000 in June.

💰 Trump Floats 'No Tax on Capital Gains’ for Home Sales

President Trump on Tuesday floated the possibility of eliminating the federal capital gains tax on home sales — a move that would alter how real estate profits are taxed for the first time in 30 years.

07/21/2025

Weekly Rate Update: FICO Hits Back 🥊

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

🥊 FICO Hits Back

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s move to allow VantageScore 4.0 alongside FICO scores for GSE-backed mortgages has triggered pushback from Fair Isaac Corp.

⬆️ Inflation Picks Up to 2.7%

Inflation picked up in June, a potential sign that companies are starting to pass tariff costs on to consumers. Consumer prices rose 2.7% in June from a year earlier, the Labor Department said, faster than May’s increase of 2.4%.

😬 Trump Accuses Schiff of Mortgage Fraud

President Trump accused Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) of mortgage fraud, and a senior administration official said that a criminal case had been referred to the Justice Department, in a sharp escalation of the White House’s attacks on vocal critics.

07/14/2025

Housing Market Continues Buyer-Friendly Trend 🏡⬆️

National active listings are on the rise (+28.9% between June 2024 and June 2025). This indicates that homebuyers have gained some leverage in many parts of the country over the past year.

06/24/2025

Weekly Rate Update: Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged 🤓

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

🤓 As Expected, Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged

The Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday as it waits for additional information on how tariffs and other potential disruptions will affect the economy this year.

📢 FHFA’s Bill Pulte Calls on Fed Chair Powell to Resign

On Wednesday, the head of the federal agency overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac called for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to resign, echoing President Trump’s demand for a sharp 2.5% interest rate cut.

😬 Trump Calls Powell 'Dumb'

President Trump on Friday floated the possibility of firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as part of his latest round of intense criticism of the leader of the central bank over its decision not to lower interest rates.

06/16/2025

Weekly Rate Update: EOY Rate Forecasts 🤓

🔗 Full story at the bio link!

🤓 EOY Forecasts

As we head into the second half of the year, many of the leading industry firms have published their forecasts. Here’s a summary of what they project will happen by the end of the year regarding home prices and mortgage rates:

Home Prices:
Cotality: +4.3%, Fannie Mae: +4.1%, NAR: +3.0%, MBA: +1.3%, Redfin: -1.0%, Zillow: -1.4%

Mortgage Rates:
MBA: 6.6%, NAR: 6.4%, Fannie Mae: 6.1%

Total Mortgage Originations:
Fannie Mae: $1.99 trillion, MBA: $2.07 trillion .

🏡 Housing Market Sentiment Hits 2025 High Point

Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index climbed to 73.5 in May, marking a 4.3-point increase from April and a 5.4-point gain since March. This signals a gradual, but cautious improvement in buyer confidence. Here are key points from the survey:

26% of consumers believe it’s a good time to buy a home, up from 23% in April and nearly double the 14% who felt the same this time last year.

29% of respondents expect mortgage rates to decline over the next year, a slight uptick from April’s 26%, but still well below the 45% peak optimism seen in November.

🤝Bessent Might Shift from Treasury to Fed Chair

The race to replace Jerome Powell hasn't truly kicked off yet but there is some positioning in the background. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has emerged as a candidate, according to Bloomberg.

Powell's term doesn't end until May 2026 and he was nominated (by Trump) on November 2, 2017 so the timeline is still long.

Chris McInturff - Loan Officer

09/15/2025

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08/18/2025

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07/28/2025

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