February 17th, 2025 - Presidents Day

Today is a quick listen! Why did rates go up?? Learn more about the CPI numbers. Also - More great news for VA buyers!! I can't believe this was just put in place. Should have been done years ago!

Things are shifting - be sure to be in the know!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

All right, everyone, welcome to the Monday call the market update. Carrie did jump on and give me host approval, so I am here today. Nikki Erickson, who usually jumps on, is actually taking a vacation day because, as you know, it's President's Day, so her stuff's closed. We're still open, though, being real estate agents. She did send me, like she usually does, a market update that I will read here from my phone just to let you know what's going on, and then a word from the street as well, which she always does. So, as committed and promised, we're showing up here every Monday and getting you ready for the week. So what Nikki sent me today is she said that the market corrected itself last week after rates went up from an unexpected CPI numbers, that's, consumer Price Index, as a reminder. As CPI goes up, the bond market responds unfavorably and therefore a mortgage interest rate increase. Now we have settled back down from that reaction or are still sitting in the mid to high sixes for conventional 36-year fixed rates. She also mentioned, as it's an important market that we're watching right now, is the market surrounding Washington DC. It's interesting and some of you may be watching from that area. I'm in Minnesota where it's negative 12 degrees today, so not plugged into that area. But Nikki did mention that because of the government layoffs and the buyouts of contracts, the numbers of houses for sale in the DC area has increased to over 400 percent and the average cost of the home a home in Washington DC was about $660,000. Washington DC was about $660,000. And as of now it's down to $560,000 on average. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with the rest of the markets surrounding the DC area. She advises to keep an eye on that and what home values are doing in that area. If that's your area whether you're watching this recording on my YouTube channel or live streamed on eXp Family Tree it's something to be aware of and absolutely if you have, you know things going on around there. Or if you want to reach out to people or again, check Nikki Erickson's mortgages from A to Z, a-z to M-N, so Arizona to Minnesota. Check her out on TikTok, because she has tons of resources and she does her social media, which she allows any of us to stitch duet completely rip off. Just write it down and re-record it yourself if you'd like. But it's important that we show up and we educate and we are on top of what's going on From on the street.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Nikki said that she put a TikTok out last week regarding automated income information for military personnel who are currently on active duty and retired. Okay, she said, if you don't have time to check out her TikTok. Basically, what it's saying is that the lending for VA buyers has just gotten a lot easier. We can now use the data that Fannie has for an automated income verification for these clients. Now this means that they're not going to have to provide pay stubs for any of that information to prove what they are making with the military. Now lenders are able to go directly to the VA and get that information for them so that there's ever a situation where they're not where they're on active duty or they're out in the field and they're trying to qualify for a mortgage or close on a mortgage, they don't have to stop what they're doing and send in pay stubs. It may seem like a lot, may not seem like a lot, but there's been many cases in Nikki's career where she's had these VA buyers who are out in the field and aren't able to get the information and documents required and requested because, well as you can imagine, they're doing other things and cannot stop to look up pay stubs and send in their W-2s.

Speaker 1: 5:19

So that's, I think, great news and, quite frankly, I didn't know this was a thing and it surprised me that this is just happening, because if we have active military out in the field, that would be hard. So I'm glad that this came to light. It definitely will speed up the process overall and another benefit for our military buyers. So if you have those VA buyers or military buyers, you don't reach out to them if they haven't yet made the move. This is another ease of process to help out our fellow military people that are out there serving the country. So that's all great news and I know let me see. If there are any questions on the live stream, pop over there. Nope, I don't see any questions, so I will go ahead. It's a holiday, so I will wrap it up right now, but, of course, if you need anything at all, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm here and happy to help in, as well as Nikki, so we're available and until next time, make it a great day.