Portland Mortgage Market Update — March 27, 2026

Oil and the Iran War are still running the show. The will they/won't they cease fire talks earlier in the week showed promise for interest rates, but as we approached Trumps (initial) deadline of Friday the market's confidence for a resolution dissolved and rates suffered as a result.

The good news is that once we do have resolution, the inflation cause by spiking oil prices traditionally simmers down pretty quickly. I hate to use the word "transitory" but when the cost to move goods drops back down to where it was, the cost of goods should move likewise. That being said, there will still likely be a lag in interest rates falling because this Fed is stubbornly reliant on data and it will take a couple of months of CPI, PPI and PCE reports before the return to normal inflation filters through the reports.

Crypto Loan opens doors for future loan products. Yesterday Fannie Mae announced it will accept crypto-backed mortgages via a new product offered only by Better Home and Finance and is partnered with Coinbase. The actual utility of this specific loan product is close to zero, but the way it works could potentially change the way we look at down payments. In the crypto loan, the lender essentially earmarks a portion of the crypto to reserve as the down payment, meaning the client doesn't have to liquidate the crypto to cash for the down. This could potentially work the same way, where the lender reserves a portion of a clients brokerage, retirement or even 401k accounts which would be huge for first time homebuyers!