Rates are going up on January 30 for the first time in 17 years. Mortgage rates have declined year-over-year, and unemployment is increasing. Lower mortgage rates have led to a pickup in purchase mortgage applications, but this hasnt.

Mortgage rates have declined year-over-year, and unemployment is increasing. Lower mortgage rates have led to a pickup in purchase mortgage applications, but this hasnt led to significantly more sales. That means prices are under pressure, although there will not be a huge wave of distressed sales. Management of VIA optronics Holding AG Acquires Majority Stake of the Company. Management of Management and Advisory team acquired 50.32% stake from Coöperatief IMI Europe U.A. Germany. Fat Pipe: Happy New Year! Silver, Bibis Toy, Diversity, Fraud, and Grab Bag – Peak Prosperity. Rates are going up on January 30 for the first time in 17 years. The share of below-3% mortgages dropped to 20.0% of all mortgages outstanding in Q3, the smallest share since Q1 2021. At the peak in Q1 2022, over 65% of mortgages outstanding had interest rates below 4%. Between early 2021 through 2022, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was below CPI inflation – negative “real” mortgage rates – free money! At the peak of the Feds craziness, ‘real’ mortgage rates were 4 percentage points below CPI. Those negative real mortgage rates wrecked the housing market. Mortgage rates adjusted for inflation are going to 2-3%, mainly because Trump will be pushing mortgage down this summer when Powells replacement is installed. Homeowners need to find the money for the largest maintenance expense of a house. Fannie and Freddie have added more than $55 billion in mortgage principal balances to their combined holdings, an increase of more than 30%. Thats taken their combined mortgage holdings to a whopping $234 billion, the highest in four years. The Fat Pipe Jan 9, 2026: Russia Uses Another Oreshnik Causing Immense Damage, Silver!, Economic Vandalism, “Health,” and a Very Bad Ally – Peak Prosperity. Fed Balance Sheet drops by $67 billion for the week by Wolf Richter. The GFC is only a myth to the average 18-25 year old, which is why the knife is falling! Average retail transaction price has exploded by 36% in three years from 2020 through the end of 2022. This is the kind of market that Ford, GM, and Stellantis abandoned years ago. American manufacturing (and certainly auto) has too high a cost structure to be viable in the next decade. Average Transaction Price kept increasing in 2017-2019 despite 10% of MSRP incentives. Average transaction price (2nd chart in my article) kept increasing. Tesla global sales in Q4 plunged by 15.6%. The three-month average payroll increase (blue line in the chart) rose to about 20,000. Median wages increased year-over-year for : “Job Stayers”: +4.4%. The wage data from ADP is based on a subset of 14.8 million. Atlanta Feds GDPNow doubled its forecast for Q4 GDP growth to +5.4% today, from +2.7% two days ago. Fed Balance Sheet drops by $67 billion for the week. 44 comments for “ Fed Balance Sheet Drops by $67 Billion for the Week ” The banks have shed nearly all of the residential mortgage risk to the government. Prime-age labor force participation rate remained at a historically high 83.8%. Private employment grew by 700k this year, down from non-recession averages of 1.5 to 2 million in the last decade or two. How much does the job market need to grow when the population is growing slowly? With 2026 barely underway, President Donald Trump has pulled the rug out from under anyone who still believed in the salvageability. Trumps Jungle Rules by Ian Bremmer - Project Syndicate. The Major Economies Prospects in 2026 by Daniel Gros - Project Syndicate. The resemblance between the US militarys “Operation Absolute Resolve’ in Caracas and events in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines some 125 years ago is uncanny – and portends more violence. Economic Policy Institute estimates that 8.3 million workers will get a pay boost from the bottom this month, adding about $5 billion to incomes. Food inflation reached an annual rate of 72% - nearly double its recent average.