Portland Mortgage Market Update — January 19, 2024

This one is going to be short and sweet. I hope you are safe and warm wherever you are. We are dealing with broken pipes and faulty generators around here, but thankfully it looks like things are going to warm up and thaw out in the coming days.

The market worsened a bit this week worsening again today on a stronger than expected consumer sentiment report. The 78.8 that it reported was much stronger than the 70.2 that was expected, and even though these are very low levels the fact that it came in so much stronger than the target impacted the bond market. The gist of the report is that people are feeling better about the inflation front and that it will get wrangled sooner then expected. One thing to note is that historically an increase in Consumer Sentiment has not been good indicator that we are going to avoid a recession. In almost all of the past 6 recessions since 1970 there has been a spike like this.

NEW PRODUCT ALERT!! We just signed up with a new Down Payment Assistance Product that allows for 0% down! Better yet, pretty much EVERYONE is eligible as long as they are buying the home as their primary residence. Rates are right in line with normal FHA rates as well! Let me know if you have any clients that are looking to get into a home but are a little "cash strapped".

Take care and I will be around all weekend (can't go anywhere!), so feel free to reach out if there is anything I can do to help