Happy Pi day!!! It's been a pretty good month for mortgage rates, dropping from 7% to 6.8%. We saw a bottom of 6.7% on March 4th but have come back up a small amount in the 10 days since. Probably not quite in "refi territory" yet but getting close for some borrowers in the low to mid 7s. Read on for this month's top stories affecting mortgages. 
Employment:
Over 172k employees were laid off last month, while only 151k jobs were added. This was our first negative month in years and the unemployment rate ticked up from 4% to 4.1%. Over a third of the jobs cut were Federal employees ousted by DOGE. Here's an article that discusses the layoffs. The amount of jobs being lost is concerning to investors, as consumer spending makes up ~70% of GDP and people without jobs will certainly cut back their spending. Article.
Consumer Confidence:
February's Consumer Confidence fell to 98.3 from a previous reading of 105.3, continuing a trend of negative economic surprises. Pessimism around future labor conditions was highlighted as a concern. Home prices continued to rise, though my friend joked, "no one seems to actually know who is buying houses these days". Underlying all the data releases is growing fear of a recession this year. Expectations of rate cuts have gone from 1 to almost 3 in 2025. This increase in expectations is helping lower interest rates. If expectations were to reverse, mortgage rates would shoot right back up to 7%. We've seen this story a few times in the last 6-12 months so I do think right now is a great time to lock in a loan. Hopefully this weekend you can get a buyer or two under contract to take advantage of the dip.
Inflation:
It's not CPI or PCE, but Truflation's real-time US inflation gauge came in last week at 1.42%, the lowest level since January 2021. This is down from 2.33% two weeks ago. Oil prices fell about 1% to a five-month low on reports OPEC+ will proceed with a planned oil output increase in April. However, CPI and PPI were reported this week to the tune of 2.8%. Both were a little softer than expected for February. Read more about the CPI report here.
January Housing Activity:
It was another very slow month of housing activity nationally. This is another datapoint in the minds of investors of a weakening economy. Personally, I think business has picked up in February with lower rates and better weather, but that is a micro snippet of the space.
Stock Market:
To quote Taylor Swift, the stock market is "down bad" this week, falling nearly 10% from recent highs. People are mostly selling shares due to increasing recession fears and Trump acknowledging some pain will be felt in the transition over to his policies. A stock market correction like this can influence consumer confidence, particularly with large purchases like homes. We'll have to see if the knife has fallen or is still falling, but it is not a good time to go check your 401k balance or make any quick decisions. I like Warren Buffett who said it best: “Never interrupt compounding unnecessarily.”
Mortgage Apps:
Mortgage applications are shooting up which is great news for anyone selling their home. Nationally, we saw a 20% rise in applications last week and 11% further increase this week. The news of the falling rates is likely hitting new ears and leading potential buyers to go investigate what's possible for them. Every time we get into the mid 6s, applications pick up. Recent history tells us we get a window of rates in the mid to low 6s for a month or so before they head back up, but maybe this time is different. With rates creeping back up a few basis points this week, I'd expect this trend of increasing applications to slow next week.
