This past week was an important one for economic data, as pundits from wall street to main street continue to discuss the possibility of interest rate cuts in 2024.
The US jobs report released this morning showed 199,000 jobs created for the month of November, slightly better than the 190,000 expected from the Dow Jones estimate. In addition, the unemployment rate declined to 3.7% compared to the forecast of 3.9%. The markets showed a mixed reaction to these reports with stock market futures trending slightly negative, while treasury yields surged.
Remember what tends to be good for the economy often has a negative impact on mortgage interest rates. While most real estate professionals and lenders, myself included, were hoping for the Fed to start cutting rates in early 2024 many experts now believe that Chairman Powell and the Fed are more likely to adopt a watch & wait strategy, and aren’t expecting any rate cuts to happen until at least the second quarter of next year.
Right now the average 30 year conventional home loan is averaging 7.09% nation wide, and the 30 year VA home loan is averaging 6.45%. See you all next week with another update.
