Portland Mortgage Market Update — March 29, 2024

It was a pretty quiet week with the biggest news drop coming today with the PCE report. The PCE is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation and today's news came in as expected with a YOY reading of 2.8%. The PCE is calculated by adding the monthly readings over a 12 month period, so today's report of a Monthly increase of .3% replaces the numbers from March 2023.

It is looking like this 2.8% number is likely to stick around for a while too, as the numbers in incoming reports are expected to be near the numbers they are replacing from last year. Best case scenarios put the PCE at around 2.5% in the coming months, which isn't likely good enough alone for the Fed to start cutting their rates.

So all eyes will be on the Jobs reports. Most of the Fed members are expecting unemployment to peak at around 4.0% before the year's end. If we get to a 4.0% or higher number sooner it could trigger them to start lowering their rates. Next week is job's week so keep an eye out for any number that starts with a 4.

That's all for this week! Also, apologies if you received multiple updates this week-we are switching to a new CRM and it looks like there were some emails that automatically went out.

I am around all weekend so feel free to reach out with any questions

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