Strong Jobs Report Pushes Rates DOWN? FHA Condo Spot Approvals
When I woke up this morning, rates were through the roof!
The bond market was reacting to a very strong jobs report – that showed the unemployment rate dropping and job creation much higher than expected.
Twitter/X was lit up with “victory lap” comments by supporters of the Fed and the Biden administration, and there were comments galore telling everyone NOT to expect rate cuts in the near term.
BUT… the bond market then had a chance to digest the data, and rates came back down (they still, however, remain higher than where they were yesterday).
Here are a couple of posts on X that explain what bond investors digested: Charles Payne: Another “Strong” Job Report; Kobeissi Letter: 10 Months of Downward Revisions; and Steph Pomboy: Hideous Job Report.
TLDR: (1) unemployment only dropped because the labor force shrank; if it stayed the same size, unemployment would be much HIGHER this month; (2) many new jobs were part-time; (3) the data is not trustworthy anyway because it gets revised downward later on almost every month; (4) the average number of hours worked is down; (5) many of the new jobs are from government hiring, hardly a sign of a strong economy; and (6) the number of full-time jobs is actually dropping at record levels – not seen since 1994 or 2020.
Rates continue to bounce up and down today, but the jobs report clearly should not be taken too seriously, and it appears that the economy is still on very soft footing. Remember too that the jobs market is the last domino to fall when recessions hit.
“Spot” FHA Approvals For Single Condo Units
This is a quick reminder that we can often get single units within a NON-FHA-APPROVED condo complex approved for FHA financing. These single-unit approvals are called “Spot Approvals.”
The condo complexes themselves still need to meet FHA guidelines, so there is certainly no guarantee that we can get every unit “spot” approved.
BUT – if any readers have condo listings coming up, they should definitely have us look into an FHA Spot Approval. The ability to offer very flexible, 3.5% down FHA financing often makes condos far more marketable.
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