Portland Mortgage Market Update — April 3, 2026

Rates spend the week working on a recovery! Two big factors at the beginning of the week helped rates try and stage a rally:

• Fed Chair Powell spoke in an interview on Monday and said he though the Fed policy was "in a good place" and did not see a reason to hike rates as a result of the economic effects of the war in Iran. He indicated that he thought the effects would be short lived, meaning once the conflict ends the price of oil should settle back to normal. If that is the case, any increase in inflation as a result of higher oil would be short-lived and not require a rate hike by the Fed. • President Trump indicated that he is looking to exit the conflict in Iran and despite a lot of muddled intel (Are Iran and the US actually talking? Is there any real negotiation happening?) the market took this and ran with it. With an end to the conflict we can hope to see oil settle down to the pre-war levels and we can get on with our improving rate environment. However, my concern is Iran has indicated that once this ends they will be the defacto owners of the Strait of Hormuz, and would look to set up a toll system in the strait. So in going to war with them, we may have given them their biggest economic boost possible, while permanently increasing energy prices for the rest of the world via this toll.

It was also Jobs week! We saw reports earlier in the week from ADP and Revelio (who has become a more consistent and notable name to listen to when it comes to employment data) and both were pretty bad to be honest! ADP showed 62K new jobs created, and Revelio showed only 19K. Keep in mind that both of these reports are solely based on the private sector and do not include government positions. Then today's BLS jobs report came out and it showed 178K jobs being created last month, despite their reporting that the government lost 18K! It also revised February's numbers further downward to 133K jobs lost. The market called BS on the BLS and is pretty much ignoring the report for what it is- garbage data. One other headline on today's report to note- the BLS is showing unemployment dropping from 4.4% to 4.3%, but that is mainly because they only include people that have been unemployed for fewer than 6 months. There were about 400K people that have been unemployed for 6+ months that were no longer eligible to be included which skewed the figures.

Next week is inflation week! With the war's impact on oil showing up in the first inflation report, it should be tricky to navigate and there is lots of room for volatility. Have your buyers check in with their lenders and if they have any questions over the weekend have them give me a call! I am around for the duration.