Portland Mortgage Market Update — November 21, 2025

Will they? Won't they? That seems to be on the mind of the market this week in regards to the potential for a Fed rate cut in December. We heard from numerous Fed members this week in various formats and the voices were split. The notes from the October 29 Fed meeting were released and they indicated there was some debate about December's cut, but ultimately most sided against it. This morning John Williams (New York Fed President and considered part of the leadership group along with Chairman Powell) said he sees "room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate to move to a stance of policy closer to the range of neutral, thereby maintaining the balance between the achievement of our two goals". Or in other words "yeah our rate is too high and we have room to cut it". Odds for a rate cut went from 50/50 up to 75/25 as a result.

It was finally Jobs Week again! Kind of. The September Jobs report was released this week and didn't really show a whole lot. I mean it provided data, but the numbers were so old that the market took it in stride for the most part (as they were more focused on the Nvidia earnings report that would be dropped later that day- more on that below). It showed the economy gaining about 119,000 jobs in September, which is much stronger than the 50,000 expected. However it also showed revisions to the previous two months with August actually ending up at a -4,000. These downward revisions are due to the Birth/Death model, which estimates jobs created or lost with the Birth or Death of small businesses. The model as it currently stands is, well, terrible. So come January the BLS is changing their methodology which should hopefully result in more accurate reporting.

What does Nvidia have to do with the housing market? Not much, at least not much directly. Nvidia has become one of the most if not these most important companies today as the market is being carried by AI stocks which rely on chips manufactured by Nvidia. For reference, Nvidia's value is 8% of the entire stock market, and AI is responsible for 40% of the US GDP growth this year. However, there are some concerns with this AI/Nvidia surge (bubble?). For one, AI requires massive amounts of energy and our grid is not currently up to snuff. To quote economist Kyla Scanlon "the AI boom is outgrowing the infrastructure that is available for it". Will there be some re-zoning or re-permitting in place to allow for more solar/wind/nuclear energy plants in our near future? Or just new/updating transmission lines? This will be something we definitely need to keep an eye on in the coming year. So while Nvidia doesn't directly tie into mortgage rates or the housing market, the industry that it represents has the potential to have massive implications on the economy and the landscape of our backyard.