By now we all know who the next President will be so what does this mean for interest rates and Real Estate? The first thing we all need to remember is that our government does not control interest rates it controls the information the Federal Reserve uses to determine the direction of the interest rate that the Federal Reserve (the Fed) controls and that is the overnight lending rate for Banks to borrow from the Fed. When the bank’s cost of money decreases it usually means that the banks will lower lending rates to the public. The Fed bases its decision on the direction of the overnight lending rate based on how the economy is performing. The President can’t control the interest rates, but he can control the economy so any changes that we might see happen will not happen until at least the 2 quarter of 2025.
The reason I say we won’t see any significant changes to the interest rates like we see in the Stock Markets immediately is simply that it takes time for an economy to go through changes. The Interest rates are set by the economy, not by policy. Policy can change the interest rates, but it will take time to show up. The Stock Markets rallied after the election as the Stock Markets are speculative in nature and the Stock Markets see the new administration to be more business-friendly and see that money will eventually open back up and flow more freely in a lower tax environment. We have to remember that the new President is not sworn in until January and it will take time to transfer power and get new people and policies in place. Then we probably won’t see the effects of the policy changes for months afterward. We are still in the same business cycle which means we must go through some pain before it gets better.
This current business cycle is one where we still have inflation and a contraction of the job market. This will not change overnight, so we need to be patient. Business cycles are generally not controlled by the government, but the government can have significant effects on it. The policies of the current administration will remain in effect until the new administration takes power. Once the new policies of the new administration take effect it could take months for them to show up in economic numbers that the Fed uses to control the rates. The wild card is that there are still 2 months of the current administration, and they still have the power to make changes to the economy in the short term that could last months into the new administration.
I do see economic hope on the horizon; however, we have to go through the business cycle we are in currently to get to the new one. This will probably be a bit painful as interest rates will still be in the 6’s and 7’s until we start to get to a place where they can go down. This place is where inflation is under control. We also must remember that Interest rates go down with negative economic news such as a recession. The Fed will lower interest rates if they think the economy needs to be stimulated, we are not there yet. This is why the Fed only lowered their overnight lending rate by .25% as was expected by the other interest rate markets. The Federal Reserve’s next meeting to determine if they will lower their interest rate will be in December. The time between now and then we will get to watch the data they will be using unfold in front of us and that is how economists make their predictions on what the Fed will do at their next meeting.
All this means that we will be in the business cycle for at least the next 6 months. In that time, we will be in this current cycle before any new policies from the government can take effect on the economy. So, I see employment softening still and I see inflation coming down as people don’t have extra money to spend on things to drive inflation up. I also see a softening of the Real Estate Market where it is changing from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market with the Real Estate prices slipping a bit in order for sellers to sell their homes. I do not predict a crash like 2008, but I do see a correction. I see mortgage rates dipping to the 5’s in the late 1st quarter of next year and that should bolster the economy. We will not see rates in the 2’s and 3’s again, in the near future, unless something drastic happens that is outside of the current business cycle. I hope this helps you with how this system works and you can plan for your financial future.
If you are reading this, you have a desire to out from a 40-year season Mortgage man what is going on with interest and the economy. We need to explore what the mortgage rates and the stock market are going to do when the Federal Reserve Bank lowers its Fed Funds rate. The Federal Reserve or the “FED” does not control mortgage rates, they control the rates that independent banks can borrow from the Fed and this in turn is the underlying cost of money. When the Fed lowers interest rates, they lower the interest rates that banks borrow from the Fed overnight or commonly called the overnight lending rate or the Federal Funds rate. This is not directly connected to mortgage rates it does lower the cost of money to the banks so the lower the cost of money to the banks the lower the costs can be pushed out to consumers in the form of Mortgage rates and other loans banks make.
That said, all indications from the Fed are that they are going to lower the Fed funds rate from a target range of 5.25-5.50% to a possible target range of 5.00-5.25%. This means that the rates banks borrow from the Fed will go down. The hope is that this will translate to lower mortgage rates. The Fed is expected to lower interest rates by .25%-.50%, and if this happens the mortgage market has already factored that into the current rates, so when they announce they are lowering interest rates and they lower them by .25%-.50% we will not see a major move downward in long=term Mortgage rates as the markets have already anticipated this move. If the Fed lowers the rate by .25%, we may see mortgage rates go up a bit and if it is .50% we may see a slight lowering of mortgage rates but no major moves downward. The most important part of the announcement won’t be the announcement of actually lowering the interest rates, it will be what they intend to do in the future and that will move the markets more than the actual move downward in September.
If the Federal Reserve sees strength in the economy, from the numbers given to them by the Federal Government’s Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) they will probably only lower the rate by .25% if the BLS number indicates a weakening economy the initial move downward will more likely be as high as .50%. If the numbers look worse than they anticipated, they may lower the rates by a larger number and that would move mortgage rates lower significantly. I and others who have been watching the Fed for decades know that they are far quicker to raise interest rates than to lower them. This is why we anticipate a max movement of .50% which has been, for the most part, factored into the current mortgage rates.
Current conventional mortgage rates have lowered into the 6’s with the anticipation of the Fed moving to lower interest rates. FHA and VA home loans are in the low 6’s to high 5’s. I am not anticipating the Fed to lower their rate lower than .50% and the markets have factored that in as well so anything different from the Fed or an announcement that the trend will be to lower rates throughout the year will have an immediate lowering of mortgage rates anything less will immediately raise mortgage rates.
It’s Monday, August 5, 2024, and the Stock Markets worldwide have endured a significant sell-off. Why is this happening and what is driving this? How will this help Real Estate and how will this hurt Real Estate? What are the global ramifications here and how will it affect you and your finances? Those are just some of the questions I will be exploring.
The markets started the correction last week due to bad economic numbers. Those numbers were weak consumer goods orders and higher-than-expected unemployment numbers. These numbers are what the Federal Reserve looks to when they make up their minds on the direction of interest rates. Interest rates drive the flow of money for growth in an economy and they have been high for several years now. Higher interest rates have slowed the real estate market to crawl over the last several years. Fewer people have been able to afford a house with higher interest rates. So with less home ownership people are not spending money on goods and services for homes such as washers and dryers, home improvement items, and major remodeling projects. All the people who work for those support companies have been slowing down and now are laying off people due to a lack of demand for goods and services. The reporting numbers are severely lagged or even manipulated and when the markets finally woke up to the fact that things are not as great as the reporting numbers have said, then you have a correction and that is what we are seeing.
This correction is just beginning, unfortunately, as the stock markets have been held up artificially by certain big investment brokerages or bad government reporting numbers or both. The philosophy of the Stock markets of late has been to simply look to the government’s Bureau of Labor and Statistics that pump out unemployment numbers, Job Growth, GDP, and unemployment to name a few. When you don’t look out the window to see what’s really going on you can be manipulated. People and the markets are now realizing the truth and reacting to the truth. I fear that the monetary system is not far behind.
Traditionally, when the economy has little or no growth the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates to stimulate the economy by getting money flowing again. I firmly believe that the Federal Reserve will have to lower interest rates sooner than later. Although the next Fed meeting isn’t until September 18th I believe the Fed will take an emergency action by lowering interest rates before their next meeting. How much I can only guess l but I would guess by .25%-.50% to get money flowing again. The problem is that as stock markets crash and big companies have less money to work with they will have to start laying off people, which we have already seen in the large-cap companies and small-cap companies. As people lose their jobs, they will have less money to spend in an economy that has already been ravaged by inflation. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before it can get better.
The good news is that interest rates will start to come down again. This will allow people who have good jobs to refinance themselves to a lower payment. It will also allow businesses to borrow at cheaper rates to expand. This will not be immediate as Rates will not go down as rapidly as they probably should. In the meantime, we will all have to endure a correction that could be very painful for those who are retired or close to retirement. It will also affect those in the tech business with the invention of Artificial intelligence (AI) that will be cutting coding jobs for large tech companies. It will also trickle over to the monetary system affecting the dollar.
For now, sit back and enjoy the show, and don’t panic. If you are young, this will be a big deal for a short period of your life but over time everything will come back as history has shown. So, If you have a good job and stay employed through all of this you will have some of the best investment opportunities in Real Estate that we have seen in a long time. You probably will not see these opportunities until early 2025 so if you can save do so now you will need it. We are in for some very interesting times through this correction and the coming election cycle and the events unfolding in the world. Pray that our government doesn’t decide that War is the way out of this problem as that has been what our government has done for the last 100 years.
By the time you read this, I am sure you have read about what is happening worldwide with pending war. It appears that our own Government is provoking conflicts all over the world and at home for no reason affecting all aspects of business including the Real Estate Industry. At home, the Department of Justice now taking up a side against the Real Estate Industry. In addition, our own government, specifically the Department of Labor and Statistics is feeding us information on inflation and employment that is clearly wrong or manipulated. If you are not asking these questions you should be, as something is going on that is out of our control and is seriously harmful to all of us no matter which side of the fence you stand on politically.
Looking at the state of the world we must ask why is the United States provoking all of these conflicts all over the world? Our media has been telling Americans that it is Russia and China and that is just propaganda so why? The only conclusion I have for this is the US Dollar. The US dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since 1944 and is now being threatened by Russia and China as they are creating alliances with nations all over the globe to start a new reserve currency. You may have heard of the BRICS nations by now, which comprise of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and many more nations have joined this movement over the last several years. Why would our government be concerned with this you may ask, it is simple, power and dominance is the answer. As it stands today, and it is changing rapidly, if you want to buy goods globally, specifically oil, you would have to convert whatever currency you have to dollars in order buy these goods. Those countries that have to convert are at an automatic disadvantage to the US Dollar. What Russia and China are creating is a system that would require the US to convert the dollar to another currency thus devaluing the dollar and creating a threat to the Central Banking system. This possibly is an explanation that makes the most sense logically. It makes no sense to make China our enemy when we literally import just about everything from China it is like we are biting the hand that feeds us. As for Russia they need Ukraine’s resources such as their gold and precious metals to back the new currency. Our government has been keeping all this from its citizens in an effort to hide the fact that all these conflicts are over money and that doesn’t fit their narrative. Again, this is not substantiated and is just a theory based on logic and what is going on in the world today. As we all watch to see what is unfolding the average American is being choked by inflation and is not being able to save or afford to buy a house with the high interest rates caused by the high inflation.
Another attack on the Real Estate industry, specifically of late, has been the lawsuits filed by prosecutors in certain states with regards to the way Agents are compensated. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) was recently found guilty of non-disclosure of buyer’s Agent’s commissions upfront as were several large National Real Estate Franchises and Companies. This has sparked confusion and frustration in the Real Estate community. The industry has been in the process of changing the way they disclose since the settlement by creating new forms and even more confusion for the consumer. Now the Federal Department of Justice, the DOJ, has begun to look at this further as they apparently don’t like the Real Estate Industry and we can only guess why. Yes, we are witnessing the weaponization of our government against its citizens or that’s what the actions look like. We are living in very trying times in the Real Estate Industry and these disruptions to our way of doing business is furthering the decline in the industry.
To further make things seem like we are living in a bizarre world the Federal Department of Labor Statistics is putting out economic numbers that both the Stock Market and the Federal Reserve have used for decades to determine the direction of the economy. These numbers have been indicating that inflation is under control or is at least cooling down, but what they are not telling you is that those numbers take out Food and Energy inflation, both of which we know have been going up consistently. People are feeling this in their everyday lives and have taken measures to keep themselves financially secure. I might say, many Americans are steaming mad as their ability to save and live a happy life has diminished with these economic times. In the mortgage business, persistent high interest rates have taken the majority of people out of the real estate market as they simply can’t afford a $3,500-$5,000 mortgage payment as they would need to show $10,000-$15,000 in monthly income to qualify for those payments and those payments equate to a starter home in California of $500,000-$650,000. This economy is not sustainable.
To conclude, I have been in the Mortgage / Real Estate Business for 40 years now and I have never seen the business as slow as it is now. I have seen the Stock Market crash of 1987, 2008-2009, and the pandemic crash of 2020 but what we are experiencing now is far worse and has been lasting for a more sustained time and no relief in sight. This Real Estate market and high interest rates have been declining since 2022 and with war on the horizon and more misinformation being fed to us daily, I don’t see an end. I like to be a realist in life and a logical thinker, however, I have only seen negatives and nothing on the table to fix the situation. I see both political parties as compromised as well as our banking system and with more bank failures on the horizon due to bad commercial loans this is going to take a bit to get through and I pray that we all come out of this as better humans and realize that we are all better united as divided we will fall.
Today’s topic might be a bit confusing to some, but rest assured if you know, you can make the right decisions with your money. We are all seeing a tightening of money lately due to inflation which is where prices of goods and services go up faster than income does. Inflation is the worst possible economic effect on any society as the people who are affected by inflation have less disposable income left over after they pay for housing, food, gas, and services. In America, there is a significant amount of people that live paycheck to paycheck meaning that they spend every dollar they make on housing, food, fuel, and services every month. When these prices go up and their income does not follow then people have to go to other sources to make those essential payments such as credit cards and this puts the average American in a deficit. Although this is not good for the average American it is also not good for the banking system as the banks rely on the deposits of Americans so they can lend out that money to keep the banks in an income stream.
This brings us to the banking system itself and most see the system as confusing and have no idea how banks actually work. In America and other Western countries, the banking system is what is called a Fractionalized Banking system. That is a big word that means that the banks can lend out most or all of the depositor’s money. For example, if a bank has $100,000 in deposits from 5 customers ($20,000 each) and it pays 3% interest to those customers the bank then can lend out a good portion of that money at higher interest rates. Remember that the banks have to keep cash on hand in case their customers need cash and in the past banks have held back about 10% of that money for cash. The other 90% is lent out at a higher rate than they are paying the customers that have savings in their bank. In our example, there is $100,000 from 5 people paying them a 3% return to keep their money in the bank. The bank can lend out $90,000 and only keep $10,000 for cash reserves and when they lend out the money they collect say 6% on the money they lend out. This process should leave the bank positive in income and has throughout the history of fractionalized banking.
Here is the problem with the system. Banks currently have no reserve requirements meaning that in my example the banks can legally lend out every dollar of your savings. This should not happen, and most banks will not lend out 100% of their customers’ deposits as they want to stay open in case there is a day when there is a heavy amount of withdrawal money. Banks are in charge of regulating themselves based on their lending models and most banks do a good job of regulating this. Here is the biggest problem facing the banking system today and that is inflation. As we talked about earlier when prices go up faster than incomes the bank’s customers are spending more than they make and they do this with credit cards and equity loans. There will come a point where the average American can no longer pay their debt due to inflation. Human nature is to make sure they have food on the table first and foremost. When the consumer can no longer pay their debt, they default. This means that if Americans can’t pay their credit cards they go into default and the bank receives no money. This holds for mortgages as well.
This is where things start to get crazy so hang on. Remember, that Banks will lend out around 90% of depositor’s money and if those loans start to go bad there is only 10% of cash left for banks to operate. So, a bank’s reserves may get eaten up quickly if there is a high default rate. Banks lend out money for Credit Cards, Residential Mortgages, and Commercial Real Estate loans and lend to other banks. When customers start to default on their loans the income stream to the bank is greatly diminished and they still have to pay interest on the deposits they have for their customers. If the bank has not held enough in reserves to account for this then the bank will fail. Or as we saw in 2008 when this started to occur the government stepped in to save the larger banks not through the use of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but actually printing money to put back into the system. The smaller banks were bought up by the bigger banks. In 2008 we had other factors going on to bail out the system as we were not in an inflationary time it was more of a recession meaning the economy was retracting with no inflation. Real Estate values during this time went down the stock market sold back and there was high unemployment due to the recession. Interest rates went down during this recession as there was no real inflation so with lower interest rates those who had the means bought homes and commercial real estate as the cost of money was cheap and this brought the economy back.
Fast forward to 2020 when the COVID crisis hits. This was a forced recession by the government telling people they could not work. We had never seen anything like this in American history and the result was that the Government and the Banking system were faced with something they had never dealt with before. The mistakes that were made have led us to where we are today. The biggest mistake was to shut everything down that was not essential. The next mistake was that the government did not take into consideration where we were in the business cycle with a healthy economy at the time before they shut the economy down. The Government printed and sent out money to every American and it may have helped some in the short run the long run is what we are paying for today. The Government also lowered interest rates to stimulate the economy and it sure did with people buying houses and freeing up equity to buy more stuff. The money was flowing through the economy and people were buying things at a crazy rate until inflation hit people had to slow their buying habits and in addition to that the Federal Reserve saw the inflation and the only tool they had to slow inflation was to raise interest rates and they did.
Today all that stimulus money is gone, however, the government has continued to spend money by sending it overseas and starting foreign wars. I can guess that the reason for the wars is to get the economy moving again as war requires a lot of money to flow. We could go into the problems of this all day long, but this is not the forum for now. The problem is, currently with the high interest rates and high inflation the more the government spends the less the dollar is worth on the world stage. That coupled with the BRICS system that threatens to remove the Petrodollar on the world stage is further devaluing the dollar. The banks are starting to see their default rate climb with inflation and this is diminishing the bank’s liquidity as this continues to happen, we see a tightening of the availability of money. Today March 11, 2024, the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) which is a way for banks to secure funding from the Federal Reserve will be ending. This will force the banks to go to the discount window to borrow short-term funds. This will lead to money being tougher to borrow. We are also beginning to see defaults start to rise and that coupled with the already tight money supply for Americans high interest rates and rising inflation it is a wonder why this is being done. Is it being done so deliberately? You can’t help but think there is some master plan to change the monetary system in America or to create a global currency minus Russia China, Brazil, India, South America, and countries in the Middle East (the BRICS nations). But why?
I am beginning to think that all this stuff we have never seen before such as wide-open borders, money being sent to some foreign war nobody seems to want, money given to illegals, civil disruption, and propaganda being spread all over, is all part of a plan to make America weak. The reason is to change the monetary system and move to more globalization that not many Americans want. I see the UN helping in this destruction of America in that they are funding the illegal migration and to make it worse the US is the largest supporter of the UN. I mention this not to scare you but to open your eyes to the great sellout of America and a move to the International Monetary Fund or something else, instead of the Central Banking system we currently use and enjoy independently of the rest of the world. Before this can happen the Banking system in the US must collapse and it appears from someone who has watched and studied this for the last 45 years that this is what is happening. I don’t want to scare people and I might be stating the obvious, but things are changing fast. I am not holding out much hope for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates any time soon as we still have inflation, and this is known not by the numbers the government feeds us but by simply going to the grocery store and filling up my car. The mortgage business is the slowest I have ever seen, even worse than 2008. This is also true for the Real Estate market and as things get tighter we should start to see more inventory hit the market as people are having a tough time paying their mortgages even if they have a 2 or 3% mortgage. I am also seeing more people defaulting on their mortgages creating a higher foreclosure rate. We as Americans can only do one thing to fix this crisis and that is to vote correctly, although I live in California and the system has been corrupt for decades it’s all we have to save our Constitutional Republic.
A Loan Officer is Licensed by the National Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS). This holds true across our great nation. A Loan Officer can do multiple things but our discussion today will be for first-time home buyers and move-up buyers looking for their primary residence to live in. This type of home loan is called a Qualified Mortgage and certain rules have to be followed by your loan officer to stay in compliance with the law. If you are looking for an investment property you are not a qualified mortgage home buyer as under the law and you are not protected under the same rules as a primary home buyer. When finding a Loan Officer you should know these basic facts of the law so it can benefit you. If your Loan Officer doesn’t even understand these basic rules of the industry then you might need to find one that does. Of course, there are many factors that we will be covering to pick the right Loan Officer for you.
So how do you know what Loan Officer or Company to pick when shopping for a new Mortgage? The first thing everyone should know is you have to feel comfortable with the loan officer. You have that little voice in the back of your head and if it is screaming at you to not trust the person on the other end of the phone that is your first sign. A little knowledge of what a Loan Officer actually does goes a long way. Trust your intuition with the person on the other end of the phone as we are in a mortgage market right now where every deal is important to have as it is so slow and interest rates are on the rise. Loan Officers are having to compete like no other time in the industry so some of the things that they will say are misleading or bait and switch.
I know this as I have clients telling me daily that they have been quoted interest rates far below where the actual market is. For example, you are shopping for interest rates for a home you will be living in, or as we stated above a Qualified Mortgage. You are getting quoted consistently in the low to mid 7’s for interest rates based on your credit qualifications. When you call and talk to a Loan Officer that tells you that the interest rates are in the mid to high 6s anybody’s first reaction would be to think they have found the perfect deal. The trap here is that you have been fooled but you don’t know it yet. So you gather all your documents, complete the loan application and deliver it to the loan officer you talked with earlier. Then you wait for all the inspections to be done on the house you are in contract on to see what might be wrong with the house and you become distracted with the house and not the financing. A loan officer understands how this process works so about this time when the inspections start to come in, the Loan Officer sends out the disclosures, required by law, and you realize that the terms are not what you were told on the phone. So you call the Loan Officer and he or she tells you that things have changed and that this is your interest rate which happens to be in the low to mid 7’s. So you think “Oh well I don’t want to have to go through delivering all that paperwork to another lender so I will just stay here.”
If this happens to you, you should run as fast as you can to one of the Loan Officers you talked to that you felt comfortable with as if they lied to you in the beginning to get your business what will stop them from lying more and possibly getting your loan declined because they were untruthful to the processor and the underwriter. Because the actual people who are working on your loan may not trust that loan officer because they know they are not a truthful person. This kind of deception is called the Bait-and-Switch sales technique which is highly unethical, but people will do it to get the business in the door.
When shopping for a Mortgage you should always go with the Loan Officer who you are comfortable with and although they can’t match that low rate that was told to you by the untruthful Loan Officer, you can trust that they will get the job done for you with an interest rate that is real. This brings me to the fact that if you are a home buyer, with good credit and you are looking for a home to live in you are not only protected by the law but you now know that all Lenders and Mortgage Brokers have to get the interest rates from all the same sources like the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA or Fannie Mae) or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, FHLMC, or Freddie Mac. So if you are being told something different be very suspect as all Lenders that are dealing with FNMA and FHLMC will be in the same basic interest rate range. Some lenders or Mortgage Brokers can be slightly better in interest rates only because they may have less overhead but there should only be at the most a .5% difference in interest rates between all lenders and Brokers on any given day and that may be high.
The moral of the story here is that if it is too good to be true it usually is. Your Loan Officer should be your advocate through the process. Your Loan Officer will be integral in helping your loan get through the process as fast and efficiently as possible. You will be in contact with your loan officer once you have found a house almost every day so you should have a good working relationship with them. I also would be looking for energy in my Loan Officer as it takes a lot of energy to get your file through the system fast and efficiently. Your Loan officer should have a working knowledge of how your Realtor does his or her job, in fact, if your Loan Officer also holds a Real Estate License you will know that he or she has an advanced knowledge of how the Real Estate Process works. At MAE Capital Real Estate and Loan, all of our Loan Officers will have both a Real Estate License and an NMLS license. Be careful of Credit Unions and Banks as they are not under the same rules that we are so they generally have slower turn times and Loan Officers that do not hold Real Estate Licenses and in some cases, you may be talking with someone at a bank or credit union that doesn’t hold any license. We are here to help and we will not mislead you in the process of buying a home in fact we don’t even get paid until we close your transaction so it is in all our best interests to get your transaction closed as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Here we are in the middle of 2023, had to believe. This year has been one of the slowest Real Estate Markets we have seen since 2009. We are experiencing record inflation for the 21st century of the like we have not seen since the early 1970s. This tells us that the cost of goods and services has risen faster than most people’s income streams have. What does this mean for Real Estate now and into the second half of 2023?
Based on the history of inflation you see the Stock markets go up due to the fact that the valuations of companies tend to go higher with inflation. We have seen this throughout history and this time is no exception. What you must be cautious of is when companies’ costs rise so high and the demand for those goods or services decreases thus income for those companies will also decline. After this companies will have to lay off salary-based employees to keep up with the rising costs and when this starts to happen you will see the economy fall into a recession or worse depression.
Inflation is such a killer of economies in many ways not just with the higher costs of goods and services but also with the availability of money with higher interest rates. Over the last year and a half now we have seen interest rates move from historic lows for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages from the 2%-3% range to now a 7%-8% range. What this has done is cut out a whole segment of the population’s ability to qualify for a new home loan. In California, we have starter home prices hovering around $500,000 on average for the state. What the higher interest rates have done is cut the people that could have qualified for this house. For example, the payment on a $500,000 house with 5% down at a 3% interest rate is $2002.62 principal and interest at 7.5% Interest rate the payment would be $3,321.27. At the 3% rate, an average borrower would have to make right about $7,000 a month to qualify for the mortgage. At 7.5% the borrower will have to show around $11,500 a month. This shows you the power of interest rates and buying power.
That said you would assume that Real Estate prices would have to come down to accommodate the higher interest rates. We saw this occur in some markets but not nearly enough to make up the difference. Today we see Real Estate prices staying relatively steady. The reason for this is interesting. Since so many people refinanced or purchased their homes with lower interest rates, they are reluctant to sell their homes as the can’t qualify for a move-up home, and in some cases, people couldn’t afford the house they are living in if they had to do it all over again. So, we are seeing people holding on to the lower interest rates and not selling their homes as they would have to qualify for a new home under the higher interest rates. With people not selling their homes, we are experiencing a supply shortage of homes on the market and with that low supply of available housing prices have remained steady even with the higher interest rates.
The next hammer to fall, unfortunately, is going to be employment layoffs. This is going to happen due to inflation and government spending that fuels inflation with an oversupply of money. In the second half of 2023, I see consumers holding on to their hard-earned money as the average consumer feels that something is going to happen, they just don’t know what. There are many factors that could fuel inflation, but the biggest unreported issue will be the worldwide devaluation of the dollar. When the world drops the US Dollar as the worldwide reserve currency, all the goods we buy from overseas will cost more and more. This is something that no generation of Americans has ever seen, the closest we got to this was the great depression. The way America got out of that was World War 2 by producing Ships, Planes, Autos, Guns, Ammunition, and such. The largest difference between then and now is that we produce very little in the US, we outsource to China and other countries. History tends to repeat itself, so shouldn’t be preparing for a war? If you are paying attention to the world and not preoccupied with all the social issues going on in our country, you will see how close we are to this prophecy coming true.
I don’t like to be negative, and I truly believe in America and the American way of life, however, I must be a realist with what I know and have seen with history. As the US Dollar becomes less valuable in the world markets this will cause further inflationary pressures on our economy. The only way out of this at this point is to figure out a way to re-set America’s debt to the Central Bank or get rid of the Central Reserve Banking system altogether and start with something new. How this could be done I would not know, but I do know it will be a very painful process to every American. With the BRICS nations and a new world reserve currency on the horizon, America is going to have to do something fast, very fast as that is supposed to launch in August of this year, and over half of the world’s nations have agreed to sign on this new asset-backed currency. Our central Bank is going to try and compete with this with a new Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The problem with this is that even our own citizens don’t like the idea of this as Americans don’t like the idea of being watched or controlled in the name of some made-up government issue like climate control. For more on this please I urge you to do research on this as this CBDC is supposed to come out in July of 2023.
What will a CBDC do to interest rates, housing, and inflation? This is something that remains to be seen but rest assured it will be a rocky ride going into the end of the year. I always say if you can own Real Estate do so as Real Estate will have value. I believe that once people see the changes happening there will be a flight to quality investments like real estate. I will bet the Stock Markets will struggle, to say the least. Interest rates will be dependent on how much inflation we have as interest rates will rise as inflation rises. So, if you are looking for advice as to when to buy Real Estate my advice would be to buy as much as you can now, if you can find it, and hold those properties that you hold currently. Keep an eye on the world and what is going on, and research other sources other than your mainstream media that most of us have grown up on as we are not being told the truth to keep the masses under control for as long as they can. Not that one individual can do anything, but the power of the masses can make changes.
By now you probably have heard that interest rates have risen to a 20-year high, but how exactly is this affecting Real Estate sales and prices? The Federal Reserve (the Fed) raises interest rates to slow demand for goods and services as with higher interest rates things cost more over time. The Federal Reserve does not directly affect mortgage rates as the rates the Fed control are only the rates that banks borrow from the Fed. This makes the cost of money to banks cost more so Banks raise their rates to the consumer to cover the increased costs to them. Since consumers get loans from Banks to buy cars, homes, consumer goods, and services the costs for all of it go up. In the mortgage arena, we have seen rates go from the low 3’s in January of 2022 to the low 7’s currently.
It should be obvious that a consumer will be able to buy less of a home in a high-interest rate environment, but home buyers don’t really understand how much it actually affects their buying power. An example would be a couple who has been making an income of $100,000 combined with a normal debt load of a car payment of $500 a month and student loans of $250 a month. This couple could afford a house with a 3% mortgage rate and 5% down at $561,000 sale price. At a 7% interest rate the same couple can now only afford a house priced at $356,000. This a $205,000 difference that has occurred in less than a year. This will hold true when qualifying for auto payments, business loans, and all loans to buy goods and services.
So with the diminished buying power of potential home buyers, you would think that Real Estate values will go down to accommodate the higher interest rates. You would be right in your assumption. This holds especially true in the higher priced homes where the people that were qualifying for a million-dollar mortgage can now only qualify for a $700,000 mortgage. Home sellers are having to come to grips with the fact that their home is not sellable at the same price it would have been a year ago. With older folks looking to retire in the next 5-10 years they are seeing the value of their Real Estate portfolio go down, and this may hold off their plans for retirement and holding on to their long-term jobs not making room for younger folks to fill the gap. Furthermore, the older generation has seen this before so they will be extra cautious with their money going into retirement and possibly not selling their family home to downsize for retirement as they may have originally planned.
The higher interest rates are pushing Real Estate values lower and this is making investors worried to the point they are holding back investing in Real Estate taking out a whole segment of Real Estate Buyers. As prices decrease you will be seeing appraisals come in lower-than-expected making selling a house more challenging when the sale depends on an appraisal. Those particular sales may fall through if sellers are not willing to lower their prices and eventually, if they need to sell, they will have to sell at a lower price. If interest rates continue to go up, and it is looking like this will be the trend, prices will have to continue to go down to accommodate those that can no longer afford to buy in the same price range as the lower interest rates would have allowed them to. The higher rates thin out the potential pool of home buyers as their buying power has diminished and those folks looking to move up by selling their existing home and buying a bigger one have dried up as well.
From a lending aspect, as rates rise, lenders know that the home values will be decreasing so the appraisal is going to be a much more important part of the transaction. FNMA and FHLMC will be cracking down in different markets where they know the prices are softening faster than other parts of the country, typically in higher-cost areas like California. Since MAE Capital Mortgage also does Private Money lending, we are seeing private individual investors who actually lend their own money to others, tighten up their requirements as well. This means less available funding for fix and flip programs, After Repair Value (ARV) programs, investor buy and hold programs, commercial funding, and more. Talking about commercial funding where that market has been killed essentially by COVID and Amazon coming in to fill the gap, has gotten even worse. As investors see the rates go up, they are less likely to buy or lend their money for Real Estate of any kind.
To conclude, higher interest rates make it more difficult for home buyers to buy homes that fit their needs. High-interest rates make home values have to come down to be able to sell their homes. Higher interest rates make the desire to invest in Real Estate and Real Estate Notes and Deeds a whole lot less. Higher interest rates make commercial lending even worse and make commercial values continue to decline. So, all in all. higher interest rates are not good for Real Estate values, resales, investments, and rehabilitation of real estate. If you are a potential buyer of Real Estate, you need to make sure your offer is a bit lower than the current market supports as prices will continue to fall as rates rise. If you are a potential seller of Real Estate, do it now before rates go even higher and be flexible in looking at lower offers, if you are not flexible you will not be able to sell your property in this crazy Real Estate market. On the bright side if you are well qualified first-time home buyer it should not matter to you what rates are so long as you can afford the payment associated with the house you want to buy. As a first-time homebuyer, you now have more inventory to choose from and if you buy now and interest rates continue to go up you have a low mortgage and an affordable payment, when interest rates go down in the future you can always refinance to the lower rate. So don't be afraid of rising interest rates as there is no perfect time to buy real estate but what I have seen over the long run owning is far better than renting so do it now and join the club of home ownership and let MAE Capital help you with buying your home and financing it as when you bundle with us you get perks like money for closing costs and an easier experience.
I am going to start this by stating that this is not meant to be political but it sure is going to sound that way after I give a true and accurate accounting of what will happen economically to the US if this Student loan forgiveness is allowed to go through. I will not even get into the extreme unfairness this is and the blatant attempt to get votes this is, that would not be productive to the economics of this. We are going to explore history, and what happened in the past when the Government tries to spend it’s way out of inflation and a recession.
It appears the current administration believes that the value of the dollar will not decline if they put more dollars into the economy. That is like saying if I gave you more money what would you do with it? Then give everyone more money and ask what they are going to do with it. You would be right if you said they are going to buy things with the money, cars, houses, clothes, vacations, electronics, etc.. Logically, you can say if more people are buying more things and those things are in high demand the price of those things will go up. This is called inflation. Inflation happens when more people want the same things and the supply can’t keep up with it. If you forgive someone’s debt it is like giving them a raise, they will have more money every month to spend if they are not spending the money on the debt they owe because the government paid it off.
As you ponder that basic economic theory, let’s look at the effect on the value of the dollar worldwide and how that will affect you here in America. So, our government gives its citizens money, and in this case to pay off debt. By doing so they put more US dollars into circulation and that will devalue the dollar worldwide. Why? Simple the more of anything everyone has the less value it will have. For example, if I produce a specific widget and I have more than I can sell I will have to lower the price of the widget to sell them. The same holds true with the dollar, the more US dollars that are out in the world the less value they have to other countries. If other countries, see our dollar as plentiful or in oversupply then they will ask for more dollars when they sell stuff to the US thus inflation. This type of economics is called Keynesian Economics and in the history of the world this has never worked, kind of like socialism has never worked, I digressed.
I told you I would not get into politics here so I will give you the facts and you can do what you want with the information. Keynesian economics is a tax and spend way of running a monetary policy. Yes, after the spending will come the taxation, it is inevitable and already shown by the government wants to hire 87,000 new armed IRS agents. It doesn’t take much of an economic mind to see what our government is trying to do. When you couple the climate change agenda with all this and the slowing of domestic oil production you are staring at an economic disaster. The people it will hurt the most are those older folks that have saved for retirement all their lives to see it all erode away with poor government money management.
Again, trying not to be political here, but I am 59 years old and have seen this disastrous mindset in the early to late 1970s. Back then the monetary policy was very similar to today’s tax and spend mentality. Where that ended up was high inflation and high-interest rates which was called stagflation (a stagnant economy with high inflation). I started in the mortgage business in 1982 and mortgage interest rates at the time were hovering around 18-20% for a fixed rate loan for 30 years. We have just seen mortgage rates jump from the start of the year (2022) when they were at a nice 3-4% to a staggering 5-6% with no end in sight for how they will go. The Federal Reserve (for those that don’t know is not part of the Federal Government they are a Central Bank that other banks use), has vowed to continue to raise interest rates until inflation gets back down to 2%. Anyone can see that under this tax and spend regime we will never get there, so interest rates will continue to rise. If you go back to my previous posts from last year you will see how correct I have been in my predictions.
You might be making more money now at your job and that is great but now if the government cut your expenses more than half you would have even more money to spend. Initially, you think this is a great deal but eventually, you will have to pay for it and in the end, you will be paying a lot more than the short-term relief you got. It is simply the price of everything that went up and so has your tax obligation. The more money you make the more you pay in taxes. Next, the Government will raise your tax rate to cover the short-term benefit of getting your student loans paid off, and over your working life, you are paying more in taxes than the student loan was by about 10-fold. So not to be political, but would you rather pay fewer taxes and have more freedom to open a business and not worry about the government coming after you, or would you rather pay more taxes and see the government pay for people that have not contributed to our economy in any way or send money overseas? Or simply put would you like to put your neighbor’s kid through college or your own kid? If you are close to retirement and you have saved all your life for retirement, would you like to see the government tax your retirement away to pay for people you don’t know and suffer because of it? If you are a first-time home buyer, would you rather pay a 3% interest rate or a 6% interest rate and be taxed on your income at a higher rate? If you said yes to any of the above then your wish has been granted by this administration. Again not being political, I can’t stand back without informing those that have not had the benefit of a good education to fully understand the principle here. You can probably tell I don't like the idea of paying off student debt or any frivolous government spending that appears to be only for getting votes at the expense of every American.
Has the Federal Reserve Board gone too far with raising Interest Rates? The Federal Reserve raises interest rates to combat inflation. Yes, we have high inflation, but has it been caused by high demand for goods and services or is it normal demand with a diminishing supply of goods? This question is not a question the Federal Reserve (the Fed) has not addressed properly as when inflation started to be seen the Fed initially called it “Transitory” meaning short term, turns out they were wrong. So now after the Fed realizes their mistake, they are raising interest rates at a far faster rate than they would have normally.
When the Fed raises interest rates, they only control one rate which is the Federal Funds Rate or the rate at which banks can borrow from the Fed. The Banks, in turn, raise their prime lending rate to the public which affects business loans, Home Equity Lines of Credit, but not the interest rates for your typical home loans. The reason home loan rates increase or decrease when the Fed raises rates is the fact the home loan rates are driven by the FNMA, FHLMC, and GNMA and the bonds that are spun off of those securities. Wall Street will actually set the rates based on a perception of what will happen as a result of the Fed raising its interest rate. There is another factor at play here that needs to be addressed and that is the fact that the Fed has been buying mortgage securities since the pandemic started and now they are selling their holdings off reducing the “balance sheet” as some of you may have heard.
The Fed is raising interest rates to slow down the economy in the hopes that the demand side of the economy will slow due to the higher interest rates thus slowing the demand to borrow money and expand. This philosophy is fine and works if both sides of the demand and supply curve are addressed. The problem I see here is that the Fed is overreacting to situations they can’t control. The Fed has no way of controlling the supply of goods and services they only can control the demand side. The problem with this philosophy in this economy is that I see normal demand with a shortening supply of goods and services. So, by trying to slow demand they are missing the fundamental problem and that is the supply side of the equation. We all have heard about China and its lockdowns over the last several months. This is causing a supply shortage of consumer goods, auto parts, microchips, clothes, and retail goods. The Fed can’t control the loss of these goods in our supply chain they are simply making it harder for American businesses to catch up to the loss of goods coming from overseas.
As the Fed tries to fight inflation by raising the rates and ignoring the supply side we will see a recession in the near future as the economy will have to pay so much more for the money that is needed to expand American Business. Oil prices are also a major factor in the inflation equation as we can all see at the pump. The Fed can’t control the demand for oil by raising interest rates, so as prices for oil continue to rise so will the price of goods and services until the price of oil is addressed by increasing supply or at least showing the American people that the government is working on freeing up resources to increase supply inflation will continue. As inflation soars and the Government doesn’t address the supply side of anything we will continue to see inflation and eventually with rates rising so high we will see an economy stagnate to the point where there is no possibility of expanding the economy with high rates to borrow money. This is called stagflation and I would argue we have been in this state for some months now with it worsening every day.
On the Real Estate and Mortgage side of rising interest rates, the signs will be obvious. As interest rates rise the affordability of homes will diminish even further. As demand for Real Estate dries up due to high-interest rates you will see the demand for home goods diminish as well. As the demand for money drops off with the high rates mortgage companies will be laying off workers and so will home improvement stores, home builders, and appliance stores. This ripple effect will cause other industries to have to lay off workers and the economy will slow so fast that you will have high prices for gas, food, and all services that revolve around them. Eventually, the prices of homes will go down due to high-interest rates and people out of work not being able to afford a home. I don’t want to scare people, but the government has been out of control of the economy for over a year now and it is showing and will continue to decline if logical decisions are not made. My fear is that what should be done and what is being done is all somehow politically motivated. Janet Yellen, the secretary of the Treasury of the United States, admitted that she made a mistake with inflation by not raising rates soon enough. Now fast forward to today the Chairman of the Fed Jerome Powell is glossing over the supply side of the equation for some reason and that should scare you as that is the core problem with inflation, not the demand side. So, I see the Fed raising rates to where we see a deep recession with mass layoffs on the horizon if they don’t stop with the interest rates and move to the supply side. Again, politics get in the way with this as the current administration is responsible for the price of oil as they have shut off possibilities of America producing more thus having to look to foreign sources of oil. Although this may look grim we are all Americans and we will persevere and prosper. To counteract rising interest rates look for new innovative home loan programs coming soon to help those get into homes in a changing world.