Santa Brought A 5.625% Rate And Nobody’s Mad

Rates ease into the high fives, low 6's as the 10-year Treasury slides, nudging home sales higher after a slow year. We break down why a program like DSCR and using bank statements are surging in regard to financing, and share a focused plan to re-engage declined buyers and tighten daily execution.

We will be on next Monday as well, so watch for that because it will be the last Monday of the year.

If you're still on the fence about business planning or you're just not certain what you want your goals to look like, reach out to me. I would love to help in any way

Chapters

• 1:12 Year-End Market Reset
• 1:39 Rates Ease On Treasury And Fed News
• 2:41 Home Sales Tick Up, Context Still Soft
• 3:55 Inventory And 30-Year November Lows
• 4:33 Non-QM And Investor Loans Surge
• 5:52 In-House Underwriting Advantage
• 6:51 Action Plan: Educate And Re-Engage Clients
• 8:18 Business Planning And Time Focus

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:37

Welcome to your Monday market update. It is December 22nd, wrapping up the year. Nikki, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

Good, good. Happy holidays, everyone. Kind of as we get into this holiday season, this is kind of what we call the two-week in the mortgage industry anyway, that two-week kind of like dead break where a lot of people are traveling, obviously, celebrating holidays, things of that nature. And it gives us an opportunity to kind of reset for next year and be able to just kind of reflect on things that have gone on in the prior year and what we can do for next year. So from an interest rate standpoint, we are seeing interest rates continue to lower, which is great news. Basically, what's happening is that tenure treasury bond is dropping due to, you know, just job reports and things of that nature that are starting to put pressure on it. Also, the news that, you know, we all know that Powell is not going to be the Fed chair uh for next year. And so that has started to help with the market as well. So right now we are into the high fives, low sixes. I've actually helped somebody lock in at 5.625 last week. So though that is all great news for things. It's expected this trend is expected to continue into the new year as the Trump administration puts downward pressure on the Fed to drop their interest rate, i.e. affecting their 10-year treasury bond, i.e., affecting mortgage interest rates. So all good things moving into the new year. Wanted to talk a little bit about home sales. We talked about this a lot this year, kind of the feeling as realtors and as mortgage originators, where what is happening? Why is business so slow? Is everything, you know, gonna be okay? You know, things of that nature. So in November, we did see a little bit of boost in sales. They are attributing this to the lowering of the mortgage interest rates. We saw a 0.5% increase from October in home sales. That puts us at 4.13 million, uh, which is the highest we've been in the last nine months. So things are looking good from that. However, if we compare that to last year, we're actually down 1% from last year. So that's why you've been kind of feeling like this year, there's just it feels like almost things are having a little bit of trouble like getting moving, or you know, you're you just didn't feel the effects of the spring market and the summer was busy, but not busy enough. And so I know for me, several times throughout this year, I've had this feeling like, am I ever gonna do another mortgage loan again? You know, because you just kind of start to panic in your business when you're used to consistency and used to a market where things are moving. It's hard to adjust when things are just slow for you know the sake of being slow. I also looked up some other interesting information. And so that 1% drop from last year in November is the is the lowest number of home sales we've had in November in the last 30 years. So, yes, we are definitely feeling that pinch. Right now, is from a listing standpoint, we are at a 4.2 month supply. Last year at this time, we were at 3.8 months, so a little bit increase in the supply that is out there, which is nice to see. And what is really interesting is as we look at mortgages coming into 2026 and the interest rates on traditional mortgages, obviously those interest rates are going to come down. But there's a whole nother category that is starting to become really in demand in the industry in general. And that's more of your non-traditional loans and loans for investors like DSCR loans, bank statement programs, stated income, profit and loss loans, things of that nature that are more on the what we call non-QM side or non-traditional type of lending, the demand for those has gone up exponentially. The reason for that is because a lot of people, for example, have a diversified portfolio. And what I mean by that is if you have a client who has a lot of assets and is just retiring, they sometimes on a traditional mortgage side, they can have a lot of issues qualifying for that. There are products out there now that are actually at more reasonable interest rates than they were before because the demand is higher, which can help them, we can use their assets to qualify for that loan instead of having to use any retirement income. So there's definitely more people out there on non-traditional employment, non-traditional ways of making money, where we are in the mortgage industry accommodating those clients now. I have clients, for example, who own 37 investment properties. Well, the paperwork for me to go through 37 investment properties is crazy and insane. And the borrower would go crazy as well. So we have products like a DSCR or a dead service coverage ratio. The interest rates on those are actually starting to push down and be more in line with a conventional mortgage. And when I say more in line, I say within a percent, whereas last year at this time, we're talking two percentage points higher, if not more. So there is a huge demand out there going into 2026 for those non-traditional programs and non-traditional products and for people to be able to take advantage of those. Me specifically, I have access to those programs. Not only that, but we underwrite them all in-house. That's very important as well, because these non-traditional programs are tend usually have to go to a different investor to get underwritten by them. We do them all in-house. We fund them with our own money, you know, those types of things, which helps us control that process. So just some information to keep in mind as far as what have you been feeling in 2025 and what's 2026 going to look like from an industry standpoint.

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

Yeah, and that's huge. So be thinking about your inactive clients, the clients that were talking about that are people in conversation, or as always, every single week, what can you take and do with the information that Nikki just gave you? Go to social media. Again, I know I've mentioned it before, not in a while, but Nikki has given us full permission as agents to duet, stitch, rinse, repeat, rip off, do whatever. But take this information and be the educator out there that people go to because they see you as a leader and an educator in the industry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:26

And any client that you have as a buyer that got turned down maybe last year or this past year in the past couple of years got turned down for a mortgage, those are important clients to reach out to as well because things have changed so dramatically and products have become so much more available in the mortgage industry. But that may be something we'd be able to qualify for them, you know, qualify them for in 2026 or even now. So it's important to reach out to those clients as well.

SPEAKER_01: 6:49

Yes, absolutely love it. Thank you so much, Nikki. I just have one quick thing to go over. Absolutely wishing everyone a happy holidays as well. We will be on next Monday as well, so watch for that because it will be the last Monday of the year. So gotta squeeze that one in. I've been doing, as I've said, ton of business planning with residential agents, with commercial agents, with investors, and I have three different versions. I have a one-pager, a 10-pager, and if you want that 40-page business plan, I have it all available. So if you're still on the fence about business planning or you're just not certain what you want your goals to look like, reach out to me. I would love to help in any way. It truly is just about taking your goals. And I like to match your calendar to what that looks like. So every day when you get up and you're working or you're working on your business, you turn on your computer or you open your laptop, you should know exactly what you're doing for the day. I see so many agents get put like lead gen on the calendar, and then they get there and they go, Okay, lead gen, who am I gonna call? What am I gonna do? And they waste half, if not more, of the time trying to figure that out. Let's get rid of those time wasters. And here's a challenge for you as well. And every elite coaching client that hires me, I help them with this for a day or for three days or for a week, really go through and have an alarm on your phone every hour or two for it to go off and write down exactly what you did that past hour or two. I promise you, you will find so many time wasters or things that you do throughout the day, like checking emails 14 times a day. Let's make that three times a day or once a day, depending on your business or where you're at. It is so powerful. And when you can take your focus and really bring it in, um, even for a small spring of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, it's a game changer across the board. So just wanted to put that out there because I'm still meeting with agents today and tomorrow. And I'm happy to do it in the new year as well. Awesome. Yeah, good. All right. Well, we'll see you guys next week and yeah, happy, happy holidays. Yes, see you guys.