Morning! This is MF Lending. We’re the fool-proof way to serve up mortgage and real estate market knowledge without any of the guesswork. So you’ll look like the smartest agent in the room.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

1. NAR Existing Home Sales Report - June 📖

2. Why did rates rise today? 🤔

By the way, this article on Student Loan Payments Resuming: What You Need to Know is the most-read article in this newsletter, you should check it out if you are interested.

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Nuwave Rates Today 📈

NAR Existing Home Sales Report - June 📖

Here are the main highlights from the most recent NAR Existing Home Sales Report.

• Existing Home Sales dropped 3.3% in June (down 18.9% from a year ago).

• Median existing-home sales price - $410,200 - the second-highest price ever recorded and only .9% lower than the all-time high from one year ago.

• Housing inventory remained unchanged - sitting at 3.1 months’ supply.

Overall, we are continuing to see the patterns of 2023 hold true - borrowers “locked-in” to their homes, resulting in extremely tight inventory. For any potential sellers, it appears that we have slightly tipped back to a sellers-market.

I do not think this will last long. As soon as the Fed makes any indication that rates will begin to fall, the market will notice the peak and flood the market with inventory.

Why did rates rise today? 🤔

If you notice in the pricing today, the market interest rates increased by about 45bps negatively.

Why? Employment.

As we know, one of the drivers of this economy (and thus inflation) is income and wage growth. If more people are unemployed, there is less free cash-flow in the market, driving consumer spending down and lowering inflation.

The Fed wants to see higher unemployment before they drop interest rates.

Today, initial unemployment claims were released:

• Last week: 237k

• This week: 228k

What does this mean?

The economy remains strong. Unemployment is staying extremely low and it is propping up the inflation numbers. This is not a good thing.

If unemployment stays low, the Fed will have no other option than to keep interest rates elevated higher for longer.

This is why you are seeing interest rates rise going into the weekend.

The Cul-de-Sac

Mark your GCal 📆

1. Wed July 26th - Fed Meeting

Thanks for reading - that is all we have for today 😎

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— Michael F DiLucchio