In a survey by the Federal Reserve, a surprising 77% of people said they were doing ‘OK’ financially at the end of July which is a 2% increase year over year. Some of this sentiment coincides with timing of unemployment benefits. The restaurant sector is experiencing major pain but Americans are consuming 40% more pizza than we did last year. Remittances sent to Mexico are up 10% year over year, and now 52% of young adults are living with their parents, a number we haven’t seen since the great depression roughly 80 years ago.
Rates – remain stable near historic lows with minor fluctations over the last 45 days. They are down approximately 1% from this time last year.
Jobless Claims – 840K people filed for unemployment for the first time last week which is still 4X pre-covid levels and higher than the highest week of the previous recession (600K). The total number of people receiving unemployment benefits is 26.5M
Jobs Report – 661K jobs were created in August – much lower than expectations. We are still 11M jobs short of pre-covid job numbers. Unemployment dropped to 7.9% on the headline figure but the reason for the drop is the labor force decreased by 700K people.
Home Sales – are through the roof! During a time of barren inventory and economic recession, home sales reached an all-time high (this index has been tracked for 20 years). Sales are up 24.2% on a year over year basis.
Applications – the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that application volume declined 4.8% from the previous week. Year over year purchase applications remain 22% higher and refinances are up 52% in the same time frame.
Forbearance – the share of mortgage loans in forbearance is now at 6.87%, roughly 3.4M homeowners are on a forbearance plan. Of the individuals in forbearance 30.2% are in initial plans while 68.38% are in extension, the remainder of 1.4% are in re-entries.