Monday: The June Existing Home sales came in lower than expected at 5.3 million. A good news item for mortgage rates, but bad news for everyone in that industry. The lack of inventory is hurting many metropolitan areas though some parts of the country still have a soft market and too much inventory.
Wednesday: The June New Home Sales (annualized) came in at 631,000 significantly lower than the expected number of 669,000. That was helpful to keep mortgage rates calm. Not sure if it’s because builders aren’t building or building fast enough (as we saw that was a possibility as housing starts were slower than expected), or if there is a lack of interest in buying new homes because of price? Remember that every market has it’s reasons so you have to go to a micro level as opposed to these national macro level numbers.
Thursday: The June durable goods order were up 1% excluding transportation up 0.4%. the news was neutral.
Friday: The GDP number came in at 4.1%. That was lower than expected, as the pundits including Larry Kudlow, the president’s economic advisor, who had also been advisor to President Reagan, thought it was going to have a strong showing. Now a stronger than expected showing would have pushed rates up since too strong of an economic output could mean inflation and therefore higher interest rates.
The slightly good news on GDP caused rates to increase just a little bit.