TODAY’S RATES & HOUSING NEWS
Average mortgage interest rates are slightly lower over the past 7 days. The average conventional interest rate across the country went down .08% from 6.73% to 6.65%.
Below is the Green Home Loans Rate Sheet compared to the national average.
Lots of news since our last update.
The FED raised the Federal Funds Rate another 25 bps as expected. This was the 10th raise in a row putting the Federal Funds Rate at 5-5.25%. The language from their statement suggests that we could be close to the end of rate hikes.
On Friday, the U.S. Jobs Report was released and job creation blew out estimates. 253,000 new jobs were created in April compared to an estimated 180,000. The BLS did revise February and March lowered by 149,000. When accounting for the revision of prior months, the net gain was 104,000.
With all this data, the markets remained relatively calm and interest rates didn’t move much on the week.
Leading Mortgage Rate Prognosticator Barry Habib has been pointing to May 10th as a day that we would finally see the headline Inflation numbers drop due to lagging data. Barry is backing off seeing a large inflation drop on May 10th due to a number of factors.
#1 – The BLS lowered the inflation number in April 2022. The yearly inflation number is 12 months added together, so by replacing April 2022’s number with a lower
April 2023 number, inflation year over year will drop. The problem is because they have lowered April 2022’s number, it’s less likely that April 2023 will replace April
2022 with a lower number.
#2 – During April 2023, there was a spike in oil prices which will be reflected in the Inflation report this Wednesday.
He does predict the inflation numbers to drop, but it may take longer than he expected. He argues that mortgage rates follow inflation and as inflation numbers drop – so will interest rates.
HOME PRICES RISE 1.6%
CoreLogic reported last week that home prices in March 2023 were up 1.6% from February 2023,
and 3.1% year over year. Let’s put that in perspective. 1.6% appreciation in one month equates to 19.2% over 12 months. While we don’t expect 1.6% to be the norm, the data supports that the national housing market is rebounding.
Per Chief Economist for Corelogic, Selma Hepp – “While housing markets across the country continue to send mixed signals, prices in many large metros appeared to have turned the corner, with the U.S. recording a second month of consecutive monthly gains. At 1.6%, the month over month increase was twice the average seen between 2015 and 2020.”
Corelogic has also increased their forecast for monthly appreciation to go up .8% from March to April 2023, and up 4.6% from March 2023 – March 2024.
In real numbers, that equates to a $300,000 home increasing in value by $13,800 to $313,800.
