Tired of getting beat out making offers on homes, why not purchase a digital one? This home is chalk full of features including gem-like furniture made from tempered glass & a roof embedded with MicroLEDs capable of displaying different colors or even landscapes – did I mention that the backyard view is in Mars? If you are wondering how someone could possibly use I recommend Snow Crash – and if the Metaverse doesn’t materialize in our lifetime you can always send the files to glass manufactures and get some cool furniture.
Mortgage Rates – decreased marginally this week as the price of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) bounced back slightly. Although pricing improved the technical trading pattern points to a continued slow increase in mortgage rates. Rates are down roughly 3/8% from this time last year.
Home Sales – the number of home sold in February declined 6.6% from January’s number, but are still up 9% on a year over year basis. There are now only 1M homes available for sale which is down 30% year over year. Homes are selling in a record 20 days. Sales of $1M homes are up 81% which has driven up the median home price up 16% to $313,000. First time homebuyers still make up a strong 31% of the market.
Jobs – while the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time & on an ongoing basis did decrease there is still 19M folks receiving unemployment benefits of sometime (pre-covid was about 2M).
Inflation – the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) – the Fed’s favorite measure of inflation – reported that inflation is up 1.6% on a year over year basis (up 0.2% from the previous month).
Mortgage Application volume decreased 2.5% from the previous week, purchases are up 3% and refinances are down 5%. On a year over year basis purchases are up 26% but this time last year the economy was completely shut down and many folks were not out shopping.