The Real Estate News Brief: Hints at a Pause, Mortgage Rate Averages, ChatGPT Home Search

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending May 6th, 2023… why economists are expecting a rate hike pause, where homeowners are paying the most and the least for their mortgages, and new home search help from a chatbot!   Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review.   Economic News   We begin with economic news from this past week, and the big news is, of course, the Fed’s rate hike. The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee followed through on an expected quarter point hike to the overnight lending rate, which puts the target range between 5 and 5.25%. It was the 10th rate hike in a row and a unanimous decision among committee members, despite calls for a pause from some Congressional lawmakers. (1)   The Fed also appeared to suggest that it might now be time for a pause, by eliminating a sentence that says “some” additional rate hikes may be needed. Instead, the statement kind of hedged on the idea of rate hikes by saying that any further rate hikes would depend on “the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affect economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments.” Economists are interpreting that to mean that the Fed is prepared to take a more “dovish” approach at its next policy meeting. As MarketWatch puts it, the Fed is “on hold.”    Fed Chief Jerome Powell also said in his press conference after the meeting that: “We are no longer saying we anticipate” rate hikes. He says: “We will be driven by incoming data, meeting by meeting.” (2)   Some economists say the Fed has already gone too far. Chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, is one of them. He called last week’s rate hike “unnecessary and harmful.”   Yun says inflation has been coming down and will continue to do so. He says: “It will be even lower as the heavyweight component to inflation, which is rent, will inevitably slow down given the robust, 40-year high in construction of new apartment units.” He also says that many small banks are struggling right now. He says: “They are becoming zombie-like banks, unable to lend even to good businesses, as they are more concerned with balance sheet shuffling for survival.” (3)   Meanwhile, there are new signs that the job market is softening. Initial claims were up 13,000 to a total of 242,000. That’s up from about 200,000 in January. Continuing claims were down, however, by 38,000 to a total of 1.81 million. (4) The April jobs report also shows that the job market is still going strong. It shows that companies increased the number of available positions by 253,000. Wall Street economists had anticipated the addition of just 180,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate also declined from 3.5% to 3.4%. (5)   Mortgage Rates   Mortgage rates dipped a little this last week. Freddie Mac says the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was down four basic points to 6.39%. The 15-year was up five points to 5.76%. (6)   In other news making headlines…   The Average Monthly Mortgage Payment   The average monthly mortgage payment is now $2,317. Lending Tree’s latest study shows that the average U.S. home buyer needs a mortgage of $333,342 with the highest amounts needed in the District of Columbia, Washington State, and California. (7)   High priced states skew the averages however, so you need to look at the individual states to see how affordable they are. The three states with the lowest average mortgage amounts are West Virginia, Kentucky, and Michigan. In West Virginia, the average is just $1,700.   Homeownership Not a Priority Among Most Renters   A majority of renters don’t see homeownership in their future. Online brokerage Home Bay conducted a survey that shows about two-thirds say they have lost hope in owning a home, although half of the respondents said that homeownership is “very important.” Given their current situation, they’d prefer to spend their money on other things. The top three priorities are paying down debt, having a comfortable retirement, and owning a car. (8)   Among the renters who want to own a home, a third are willing to pay a high price to do that including many who said they’d skip meals or sell their plasma. Two thirds also said they would take on a second job.   Zillow, Redfin Launch ChatGPT Plugin   Searching for a home could get a little easier with the help of a chatbot. Both Zillow and Redfin announced that users will be able to get a ChatGPT plugin that will allow them to describe homes and have the chatbot show relevant listings. The OpenAI website says that only a small number of users have access to the plugins right now, but you can add your name to a waitlist. (9)   That’s it for this week’s News Brief. Check the show notes for links at newsforinvestors.com. You can also join RealWealth while you are at our website by hitting the “join for free” button. Membership gives you full access to our Investor Portal where you can see sample properties and connect with our network of real estate professionals, including our RealWealthinvestment counselors.   And please remember to subscribe to our podcast!   Thanks for listening. I'm Kathy Fettke.   Links:   1 - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/03/fed-rate-decision-may-2023-.html   2 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/4-things-we-learned-from-powells-press-conference-after-latest-fed-rate-hike-4863f055?mod=federal-reserve   3 - https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/yun-latest-fed-hike-unnecessary-and-harmful   4 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobless-claims-climb-13-000-to-242-000-and-show-hints-of-labor-market-softening-41d5e71b?mod=economy-politics   5 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/construction-spending-up-0-3-in-march-546e0768?mod=economy-politics   6 - https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms   7 - https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/the-average-monthly-mortgage-payment-is-above-2300   8 - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/04/renters-say-homeownership-is-hopeless-how-theyre-spending-instead.html?__source=realestate%7cnews%7c&par=realestate   ​​9 - https://therealdeal.com/national/2023/05/04/redfin-zillow-adopt-chatgpt-plugins/