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Mortgage Market Update - Home Sales, Home Prices, and Continuing Unemployment - 1/2/2024

Larry Bailey

Hey everyone, it's Larry Bailey. This is for the Week of December 25, 2023, in Review:

After the markets were closed Monday for Christmas, the latest housing reports showed there’s broad-based home price appreciation around the country while sales are expected to pick up this year. Here are the highlights:

  • Home Sales “Will Improve in 2024”
  • Home Prices Continue Higher
  • Continuing Unemployment Claims Near 2-year High

00:00 Introduction
01:13 Platform Support
01:47 Pending Home Sales
03:05 Lockbox Openings
03:26 Affordability and Lower Rates
05:27 Home Prices
08:33 Continuing Unemployment Claims
09:19 National Soup Month
10:40 What to Look for This Week

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Hey everyone! Happy New Year! Larry Bailey here with Awesome Technologies, Inc. Bringing you another weekly newsletter. This is the first of 2024, and it's a short one, because it's a short week, and last week was a short week. So, this information's going brought to you from MBS highway your trusted source for mortgage market intelligence its also brought to you from Awesome Technologies Inc of which I'm a co-owner in and I couldn't be more excited to bring you not only all the great solutions that we always have for you with regards to your work flow enhancements and optimization and efficiency gains and training and plugins and automation but then also business intelligence also moving your data and documents from one endpoint to another endpoint and then also your commissions automating your commission so all this information is really important for you to understand that we have your back in 2024 at awesome technologies inc and as a reminder we not only support you if you're using the encompass platform but also meridian link platform and then also last but not platform or byte pro. So let's get into the newsletter. information coming to you from the week of December 25th, 2023 Today is January 2nd, 2024 Here's what we have, after the markets were closed Monday for Christmas, the latest housing reports showed there's broad based home price appreciation around the country while sales are expected to pick up this year. Here are some of the highlights from last week. First story is home sales quote will improve in 2024 the next story is home prices continue to go higher and the third and last story here is continuing unemployment claims near two year high so if you're listening to this on podcasts thank you very much if you wanted to actually see whats going on on screen please head over to the mortgage.comunity and check out the market updates section there or any place else that we posted this video on socials such as the youtube channel for awesome technologies inc so the first one's story here is home sales will improve in 2024 and there's a great image up here put together by MBS highway the source is the national association of realtors so the pending home sales were unchanged from October to November though October's figures were revised slightly higher according to the national association of realtors also known as NAR sales were also 5.2% below the level reported in November 2022 quite honestly which aint so bad considering everything thats going on so this data measures of course only the signed contracts on existing homes making it a forward looking indicator for closings as measured by existing home sales so the bottom line here is those signed contracts were flat from October to November declining mortgage rates have quote sparked a surge in interest as evidenced by a higher number of lockbox openings close quote per the NAR's chief economist Lawrence Young if you guys don't know what a lockbox opening means umm so if youre the kind of person that remembers the old lockboxes like me and it was like a piece of metal hunk of metal stuck to a door knob or railing and you just kind of dialed it and you took out the key yeah thats not the new tech the new tech is you go up with your smart phone and you through a code you open it well with smart comes data with data comes comments like this so they can actually at the NAR you know big brother is always watching the NAR can actually track how many lock boxes were opened why is this an interesting this is interesting because if I can tell lock boxes were open that means showings get get the data points here you know point a to point B so young also added that sales are expected to improve in 2024 as lower rates have led quote to savings of around $300 per month from the recent cyclical peak in rates close quote hey listen gang I you know I started lending in 1993 as a loan processor I still care my loan originators license from when the NMLS started that and I can tell you that the idea that saving 300 bucks a month really is going to limit the top affordability index so you know if anybody ever called me for a mortgage it was always you know listen let's talk about what you can afford not what you can qualify for because I can qualify you're right in the bankruptcy or foreclosure no problem so let's talk about what you can afford and 300 a month again is a big deal if you're talking about health insurance or you're talking about car payments also being included in there because you gotta live life too so it is helping and again this is more of a loan product feature but I would always encourage if youre that tight look at 21 buy downs or even 321 buy downs if you can get a seller to pay for that kind of vig on getting that interest rate down temporarily for the first 3 years. Umm again only get into those if you truthfully expect your income or your debt to change over the foreseeding future. Getting a lower payment today is going to do you zero good if you can't afford it in 2025 So umm if you ever have any questions about that let me know you can always email me larry at atihelps.com be glad to help you out with any questions you have even if it's about mortgages themselves cause i know that stuff uhh so heres the next story home prices continue higher and this is an image from the case shiller home price index brought to you from sources of uhh coming from s and p dal jones indexes or indices umm its a better way to say it the chiller home price index which is considered the quote gold standard closed quote for appreciation showed home prices nationwide rose .6% from september to october after seasonal adjustments marking the 9th consecutive month of gains prices were also 4.6% to 28% higher than in october of last year which is the fastest annual rate of the year the S&P DJI's head of commodities that's down Dow Jones index Brian D Luke noted that the report quote reflect a rising tide across nearly all markets close quote Federal Housing Finance Agency is also known as the FHFA that house price index also saw home prices rise 0.3% in October with their in the We'll see index setting a new record highs in home prices every month since February. Note that the FHFA's report measures home prices appreciation on single family homes. Umm you know and so on screen you'll see a whole bunch of stuff that says you know lower price homes, cash buyers bla bla bla the idea here is FHFAs just came out with 2024s max its like 720 so its over $700,000 I dont have the exact number in front of me umm in the event uhh this goes from you a house that costs 50,000 up to 700,000 so its a pretty wide swath of homes into this home price calculation umm Kay Schiller of course includes every house FHFA is doesnt include like every house where you finance above that max threshold so the bottom line here gang is home prices continue to set new highs according to Kay Schiller FHFA Corelogic and Black Knight which are some other indexes that are followed and its theyve risen more than recovered covering from the downturn we saw in the second half of 2022. Prices are now on page to appreciate around 7% this year based on the reported pace of appreciation through October. Umm these indexes show that now remains a great opportunity for building wealth through home ownership. Couldn't be more true. So the next story is continuing unemployment claims near a two year high. Initial jobless claims rose by 12,000 in the latest week with a higher than expected 218,000 people falling for unemployment benefits. For the very first time Continuing claims also rose by 14000 remaining near the highest level in more than two years as 11875000 people are still receiving benefits after filing their initial claim So the bottom line here again is a low number of initial jobless claims suggest that layoffs remain muted as employers are trying to hold on to workers yet continuing claims have also been trending higher and that point is still weakening the labor market where it's much harder for people to find employment once they're let go I want to call out here that the data that were talking about still could be volatile because of the Christmas and New Years holidays so things could be a little bit out of whack in terms of reporting and people doing whatever they do in terms of filing those claims National Soup Month I love a good soup so here's a quick and easy recipe for chicken noodle soup this is courtesy of all recipes and it serves six and it's a perfect way to kick the year off right if you like chicken noodle soup so in a large pot melt one tablespoon of butter over medium heat add a half cup each chopped onion and chopped celery if you like that kind of stuff and then cook those until tender which is normally about five minutes add four its 4.5 ounce cans so four cans of chicken broth if you use that or just you know just add 14.5 ounces if you've got a big guy also add 14.5 ounces of vegetable broth and then a half pound chopped cooked chicken breast one and a half cups of egg noodles if you like those and one cup sliced carrots because you need noodles if you have chicken noodle soup you can also add in a half teaspoon basil and a half teaspoon oregano salt and pepper to taste stir all that combine it and bring it to a boil and then reduce that heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes enjoy with your favorite crusty bread i agree that is sounds really good here's what to look for this week today is tuesday january 2nd and markets were closed yesterday monday for new year's holiday the labor sector data will be plentiful on wednesday that's tomorrow look for the jolts that's the job opening report and that's for november and while december's ADP unemployment report that measures private payrolls through ADP and its the latest job and the latest jobless claims will be reported on thursday so last but not least friday brings december's jobs report from the bureau of labor statistics that includes the non-farm payrolls any unemployment rate so first week it's all about jobs numbers jobs numbers jobs numbers and that will do its thing for the markets right now we've seen this falling getting worse a little bit over the last couple of days since last week and that simply means that the cost of money is getting a little bit more expensive than it was before so my name is Larry Bailey Again if you ever need anything with regards to anything mortgage related like anything give me a shout over Larry at atihelps.com and you guys make it a great week take care.

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