To understand what’s at stake in the week ahead, we need to understand where we are and where we’ve been. With that in mind, here’s a quick recap of the past year or so in global macroeconomics.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Housing Market Gearing Up For a Big Week Ahead

It’s never fun when this weekly newsletter has back to back headlines concerning rates moving higher, but facts are facts. The average lender is back in line with the highest levels since March 20th. What went wrong and are there any silver linings?
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Did Rates Get Too Good To Last?

While interest rates are always a topic of conversation in the housing and mortgage markets, everyone was talking about them last week. That tends to happen when the average 30yr fixed rate threatens to break into the high 3% range after a long absence. But just as quickly as the good times started to roll, rates bounced higher this week. Let’s take a look at the effects.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
After Massive Response Last Week, Are Low Rates Already Gone?

Since February 28th, the average mortgage rate quote for the average lender dropped by roughly half a percentage point. That makes March 2019 the best month for rates since the Fed first announced quantitative easing (the bond buying program designed to lower mortgage rates) in late 2008.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Best Month in a Decade For Mortgage Rates!

The future is always uncertain when it comes to financial markets and interest rate movement, but there are times where a certain series of events seems more likely. For most of 2019, mid-March looked to be one of those times.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Rates Dropping Fast as Home Sales Bounce Back

Market participants sensed that the Fed was suddenly changing its tune with respect to its balance sheet back in January.  The balance sheet primarily refers to all the bonds the Fed purchased as a part of the various Quantitative Easing plans conducted throughout the recovery to the Great Recession.  At the time, those QE plans technically involved “printing money.”
But it wasn’t just money dropped from helicopters.  The money was used to buy investments–in this case T
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
The Fed Officially Announces Big Bond-Buying Change

Mortgage rates dropped to new long term lows this week with the average lender at the best levels since January 2018. For the most part, we haven’t seen much volatility this year, but that could change soon.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Lowest Rates in 14 Months And More Volatility Ahead

Things were starting to look pretty scary for housing up until a few weeks ago. There was a chance that some of the weakness was temporary. Last week’s Pending Home Sales report was strong, but we didn’t have any other big housing reports to validate the hope… until now.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Housing Pops; Rates Drop

Two weeks ago, we talked about why 2019 could actually be great for the housing market, despite downbeat reports and the likelihood of one more month of weakness for Existing Home Sales. This week, we saw the bounce we were looking for in Pending Home Sales, but we also saw rates rise fairly quickly.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Home Sales Bouncing Back, But So Are Rates

The Federal Reserve (aka “the Fed”) is the US central bank that sets policies relating to the flow of money. Even though they’ll be the first to admit they don’t have perfect control of the situation, their goals are to keep employment high, prices stable, and financial instability at a minimum.
Source: Kevin Litwicki Universal Lending
Why The Housing Market Cares About The Fed