Bonds still want to improve!
As we spoke about last week, the bond market really wants to improve. All the data on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with a lack luster 10yr auction still couldn’t keep the 30yr 5.5% coupon from fighting hard to retake it’s 200 day moving average once again. Make no mistake about it, I’m not saying we are going to see a robust move, not by any means, but I do see that the trend is for prices to improve and rates to go lower. Maybe the phrase will have to be, “Lower, slower” or something like that, but until we clear all of the old data from the first half of last year, even though the signs are all there, the year over year comparisons will still look worse than they really are! It will be June and July before we start running into where the market began to turn for the worse last year, so be patient and prepared!
The same will hold true for the housing and price data. Year over year numbers for both purchases and refinances will look much stronger in a few months, we just have to clear the old numbers out. As it was, purchase activity is still pretty solid and rates are NOT stopping people from buying, it’s the fact that a weaker than normal listing first quarter of 2023 has left weak inventory even weaker than we could have imagined. We need to use ALL of our strategies to help our agents get out and get in front of homeowners and talk the talk about listing and buying! The first-time buyers are already in the market. We need to push the middle and higher end markets to get moving and PULL the entire market UP!
Sometimes we can push from the bottom up. However, we already have plenty of first timers already preapproved, we need the system to pull activity higher. There needs to be inventory in the second and third tier homes available so the entry level homeowners can see an opportunity to sell and move onward. It’s NOT RATES! It’s INVENTORY that is the challenge, and the only way to get inventory is to go out and GET IT!
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