Minutes from the December meeting of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee were released this week, and they show Fed members still focused on fighting inflation, not lowering interest rates. (The full minutes can be found here.) “Participants generally observed that a restrictive policy stance would need to be maintained until the incoming data provided confidence that inflation was on a sustained downward path to 2%, which was likely to take some time,” according to the summary of the meeting. “In view of the persistent and unacceptably high level of inflation, several participants commented that historical experience cautioned against prematurely loosening monetary policy.” While the December rate hike of 50 basis points was smaller than the…
By JARED WHITLEY Divorce is the number two most stressful event in a person’s life, leading lady Leslie Knope reveals in one episode of “Parks and Recreation,” adding “Of course, marriage is number seven. So, watch out, everyone. It’s all bad.” We face a similar conundrum in the housing market right now. Housing prices have been out of control the last year, and in response, the Fed has announced it will raise interest rates this month. Rates have already surged to their highest point since March 2020 – the start of the coronavirus and its accompanying government damaging overreactions – showing that the salad days of 2% rates on a traditional home loan are over. The question for housing experts to answer…
After weeks of waiting, President Biden announced Monday he is renominating Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell to another four-year term. Now analysts are asking what impact another Powell term will mean to mortgage rates and the housing market. The move has been characterized as a return to the status quo in which the Fed chairman is reappointed regardless of their political identity, a tradition former President Trump bucked when he appointed Powell. The Fed chairman question has been on many industry watchers’ minds in the last two weeks. Much was made of Biden’s sit down with Fed Governor Lael Brainard, seen as the most likely candidate if Biden chose to make a change. Brainard has instead been nominated as…
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is meeting September 21 and 22 to discuss the next steps on broad issues related to monetary policy. But in the mortgage industry, there’s only one question on brokers’ minds: What’s going to happen to interest rates? As of today, the best guess is: Not much. Fed-watching is an industry unto itself, and the phrase that’s caught their attention is “substantial further progress.” That’s how Fed Chairman Jerome Powell described the conditions under which the institution would begin reducing its monthly bond purchases — currently $120 billion — as part of his regime of “qualitative easing.” Shrinking the money supply, or even talk of shrinking the supply, is expected to lead to higher interest rates and,…
The hot talk in Washington is about inflation, not interest rates. “We’re experiencing a big uptick in inflation, bigger than many expected, bigger certainly than I expected, and we’re trying to understand whether it’s something that will pass through fairly quickly or whether, in fact, we need to act,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking Committee last week. Meanwhile, U.S. mortgage interest rates have risen since President Joe Biden took office in January according to Federal Reserve data. On the day he was inaugurated, the 30-year fixed rate was around 2.75 percent. By April 1, it had risen to 3.18 — its highest level since June of last year. Rates have been gradually declining since then but have…
The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it will continue to load up on mortgage-back securities to ensure credit is available to businesses and individuals to keep the economy afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. “We have been purchasing sizable quantities of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities in order to support orderly conditions in the markets, which are vital to the flow of credit in the economy,” Chairman Jerome Powell said. “To sustain smooth market functioning and foster the effective transmission of monetary policy to broader financial conditions, we will continue to increase our holdings of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities at least at the current pace. These purchases are also fostering more accommodative financial conditions.” Powell emphasized the need to keep…
