BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 915: BiggerNews: Why Mortgage Rates AREN’T Falling w/Caeli Ridge

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

The Fed has signaled something significant for mortgage rates. With inflation still rearing its head and the job market hot as ever, the Fed already has enough evidence to hold back on lowering the federal funds rate, which influences the mortgage rate you get on a home. So when will the Fed finally lower rates so we can escape this highly unaffordable mortgage market? Or, can the Fed pause for the foreseeable future as we enter a new era of high interest rates? Caeli Ridge, President of Ridge Lending Group, is here to help us answer these questions. Caeli works on getting investors mortgages every single day, so she has a solid pulse on the mortgage market. She gives us a mortgage rate update, explaining what today’s rates look like, when the first Fed rate cuts could come (sooner than you think!), and how a mortgage lender calculates your specific rate. She also gives some tips on navigating this high-rate environment and why merely looking at your mortgage rate as a deciding factor could cost you big time. As we wrap up, Dave will give his perspective on what the Fed is waiting for and the factors that MUST change before the Fed decides to proceed with a rate cut. He’ll also share a few tips on how to get ahead of the competition with today’s high rates and why these unique advantages won’t last long. In This Episode We Cover: How long we’ll have to wait for the Fed to finally cut rates  March 2024 rate update and the rate you can expect on your next mortgage What matters MUCH more than your mortgage rate when closing on a property LLPAs (loan-level price adjustments) and how to score a lower interest rate from your mortgage lender The crucial economic factors the Fed is watching to decide when to lower mortgage rates How to get ahead of the competition during a high-rate environment and buy when the masses are distracted And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Agent Find a Lender BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets Merch Join BiggerPockets for FREE Learn About Real Estate, The Housing Market, and Money Management with The BiggerPockets Podcasts Get More Deals Done with The BiggerPockets Investing Tools Find a BiggerPockets Real Estate Meetup in Your Area Expand Your Investing Knowledge With the BiggerPockets Books Be a Guest on the BiggerPockets Podcast Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Dave's Instagram Hear Dave on The “On the Market” Podcast Watch Dave on the “On The Market” YouTube Channel Sign Up for BiggerPockets Pro to Attend the Market Intelligence Workshop Grab The Personalized Guide to Picking a Mortgage The BiggerPockets Mortgage & Home Loan Calculator Should You Buy Mortgage Points? Fed Meetings Calendar Connect with Caeli: Caeli's BiggerPockets Profile Caeli's Instagram Caeli's LinkedIn Caeli's Website Check out more resources from this show on https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-915 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, investors, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm your host today, Dave Meyer, and that means we have a bigger news episode for you. Today, we're bringing in a lender expert, Chaley Ridge, who specializes in helping investors. Chaley's going to give us a brief update on what's going on in the mortgage market and provide some advice on how investors can navigate the current market. So we're going to talk to Chaley, but make sure to stick around after that because I'm going to talk a little bit more. about the economy and about why interest rates are staying higher than I think a lot of people expected them to. So make sure to stick around. It's only five or ten minutes. I think it will really help you understand what's going on in the mortgage market and what might happen over

the rest of the year. Before we jump into our interview, though, I do want to share a resource with you that I actually created. I know that right now a lot of investors are struggling with high mortgage rates and are trying to figure out what financing options are right for them. So in order to help you, I created this downloadable guide that you can get for free at BiggerPockets.com slash resources. And the whole point there is a personalized guide to picking the right mortgage for you. So hopefully the interview with Chaley and the context that I'm going to provide will help you understand what's going on in the market. But if you're still thinking like, what does this mean for me, what mortgage is right for me, go to biggerpockets.com.

slash resources and check that out. And if you're a Bigger Pockets Pro member, I'm actually going to be hosting a workshop with Q&A about what's going on in the mortgage market, what's going on with financing right now. That's on March 28th. And it is free for all Bigger Pockets Pro members. So with that said, let's jump right into our conversation with Chaley Ridge. Jaley, welcome back to the show. Thanks for being here. Hey, Dave. Great to be here. Thank you guys for having me back. Well, we are very happy to have an experience lender like you joining us today because mortgage rates are obviously on top of everyone's mind, particularly real estate investors. And so can you just give us a rundown on where rates have gone over the first quarter of 2024? So I think we saw some improvement

late last year. And I think people were optimistic. I feel like the secondary markets in Wall Street have a way of interpreting what the feds are saying and kind of putting in their own wishful thinking. I think a lot of the expectation was that they would be lower than they are right now. That isn't necessarily the case. You know, not to toot my own horn, but I've been kind of holding steady for the June-ish July range for our first rate cuts. You can't fight the Fed, man. I may end up saying that again in this interview. You got to listen to what they have to say. So I think they're better than they were most of last year. They're worse than they were end of last year. But I think that overall we can expect some improvement in the coming months. That said, and I've said this before,

too, rates go down slower than they go up. Historically, they're always going to come down much slower than when we see them go up. So we just have to kind of be a little bit more patient and see where that takes us. I do want to jump into what you said about some of the wishful thinking and fed behavior, but can you just give everyone just a quick snapshot of where rates are today? And just for the record, we were recording this the middle of March. It is March 13th. So it could have changed by the time this episode comes out or you listen to this episode. But what are rates where we sit today?

So I looked this up before we got on. And remember, you guys, the LLP. So I need to give you what the schematic is for this. But 6.875 would be the rate that you would lock at today with two points based on the following variables. A single family residence, a purchase, an investment property. 760-year better credit with 25% down on a 30-year fixed mortgage. That's the interest rate you would be locking today based on all those variables. Okay.

And that's for an investor. That is an investor loan. If we want to look at an owner-occupied or primary residence, you can usually expect to see about a point better in interest rate overall as opposed to an investment property. That's better than I thought you were going to say. So that's encouraging. Yeah. I did kind of put out some notes that I think might be useful for everyone.

And I'm going to get into just a few of those. if you're okay with it. Please. When we start talking about interest rates, everybody, there is the psychology that centers around an interest rate that I really work hard to try and dispel or at least provide the information so that you guys understand the science,

the math that's going on behind an interest rate, especially for us investors. So just a few things that I would touch on. You know, if you take it and you make it emotional, it's only going to hurt you. The interest rate is not a big crazy monster. There is a very specific set. of formulas or calculations that you should be doing in order to determine where the interest

rate needs to be for what your expected return is. A couple of good examples are when we kind of get all tied up into the interest rate phenomenon. You need to look at the principal and interest payment difference between, let's say, competing rates. Let's say you've got two different quotes, and one of which is 7%, and one is a 7%. and one is a six and a half percent. The first thing I want you to do is I want you to look at the principal and interest payment differences between those two.

Don't worry about the taxes and insurance. Those are going to be static. But look at the principal and interest payment difference between whatever you're being quoted. And then what you should do, you should probably have a mortgage calculator and get any one of them online. They're very easy to find. I want you to take the overall numbers, the loan size, loan to value, all of that stuff, and see how the principal and interest payment changes for every eighth or quarter or half

or full percentage point in rate. Is it a $10 monthly difference? Is it $100 monthly difference? What are those variables? And taking that information, knowing what you can live with, I want to make sure that everybody is looking at the investment holistically. This may be one of the more important points that I want to make here. If you are looking at just a rate and say, well, this guy is saying 6.75,

these guys are saying 7%, which I'll get into in a second when we talk about LLP. the payment difference is $12 a month. These guys can close in two weeks, and these guys, I'm not sure. I mean, there's just more to it than just what that number looks like on paper. So for anyone, everyone who's listening, I just want to make clear what Chaley is saying here is that it's important the rate, but really at the end of the day, if you're trying to calculate either as a homeowner what your monthly payment's going to be or trying to distill your cash flow, what really matters is your monthly payment.

And as Chaley was saying, usually your monthly payment is made up of four different things. You have your principal, you have your interest, you have your taxes, and you have your insurance. Taxes and insurance are going to be the same from mortgage to mortgage. And what you want to start looking at is how your principal and interest payment, that's why we're saying just look at principal and interest payment changes between different offers and different interest rates. And per Chaley's point, you can do this on any mortgage calculator. We have one on Bigger Pocket. So you can just go to Bigger Pocket stock. And if you want to just go to the tools tab and go to the mortgage payment calculator, you can look at this for yourself.

But go on, Jayley. You know, and it may not even be about competing rates either. Let's just say that the rates are X. Okay, today they're at seven or whatever they are. But you're holding out for six and a half. That's probably a more appropriate example to make is that if you're waiting on the sidelines for interest rates to get to a certain place because psychologically you think that that's what needs to happen, that holistic comment that I made a few minutes ago is going to be very, very important. Are you looking at fact factoring the futures, the tax benefit, all of those things? Are you going to give up $12 a month right now and miss out on the opportunity later?

So just I would offer that. Now let's get into something a little bit more technical. I won't go too deep into this because it is a little bit of a new language for a lot of people when they start hearing what LLPAs are. Those are loan level price adjustments. So when we talk about interest rates, very important. Interest rates like anything are not created equal. So you really want to understand what is behind how your interest rate came to be. So an LLPA, real simply, is a positive or a negative number that will attach itself or associate

to the individual characteristics of that transaction. Example, occupancy is a big one. The LLPA for a primary residence where you're going to reside versus an investment property that you're going to put a tenant into are a huge difference. Loan size, loan to value, property. type, credit score, purchase versus refi, all of these different variables come with their own unique LLPA. So one of the things I kind of say when people get really, really hung up on interest rate is, well, okay, we'll change your strategy a little bit then. If you are dead set and you need a 6%

interest rate, you could probably find that, but you're going to put 30% down. You need to maybe raise your credit score a little bit. It's got to be a single family. It can't be a two to four, all of these different things. So make sure that you understand what's going on behind the scenes and that it also will dispel some of the psychology that goes into it. Yeah, banks generally, lenders generally offer a range of interest rights. What you see in the media or what you're quoted is either the prime rate or whatever the averages between a bunch of different lenders. But really, there's this range.

And if you want to get on the lower end of the range, your objective has to be to lower the risk in the eyes of the bank. And there's different ways to do that. Chaley just mentioned some of them, like get a better credit score. When you have a better credit score, the bank sees less risk in you. Owner occupants, they see less risk in. If you shorten the term of your loan from 30 to 15 years, these are all ways that you can signal to the bank that you are less risky and they will typically offer a better rate

in the form of better LLPas, as Chaley just said. Yeah, great, great points. And then, of course, you can buy the rate down. Now, depending on your circumstances, paying additional points to get a lower interest rate may or may not work. The math there is very simple. Going back to figuring out the payment difference, principal and interest only, between this rate and that rate. And then the cost difference in points, you simply divide those two numbers, payment difference by the overall extra cost for the lower rate. And that will yield the number of months it takes to recapture that upfront cost for the savings that you're expecting.

more often than not, especially in this higher rate environment, that is not going to be to your advantage, especially because most of us are going to be refinancing in two, three, five years or whatever. So paying the extra for a lower rate right now, not sure that that makes sense for most circumstances. I mean, not all, but for most. And Chaley, how much does that usually cost to buy down your rate? So it's very difficult to gauge an actual. It's not like I can say for every 1% in points, you're going to reduce your rate by half a point.

It doesn't work that way. And similar to the LLPA conversation and day by day and where secondary markets are trading, it can be all over the map. I wish I could give you an average rule of thumb. But they're just, especially right now when rates are just kind of in this weird space, it would really be impossible to say, for this, you're going to get this. Okay. I actually, I'm kind of remembering like two or three years ago,

I made a spreadsheet that helps you calculate if it's worth it to buy the points on your mortgage. We will link to that. It's free for Bigger Pockets members, so we'll put that in the show description. But per Chaley's point, you can't just like enter in a number. You're going to have to get a quote from a lender. And then you could enter that into the spreadsheet that I've created. And it will tell you sort of like, if you plan to refinance in two years, it's not worth it. Or if you plan to wait five years, it's worth it. So it really is, you know, depends on the inputs that you put in and the assumptions that you make. But that could help you decide if it's worth or not to buy down the points?

The calculator or the simulator that you have there, I assume, and I don't know this, but the tax benefit of points, right? Most of us are aware that points specific to an investment property are tax deductible. So there may be some secondary advantage there that might be worth considering as well when you guys are looking at whether or not to do that. That's a great point. No pun intended. Pun totally intended.

That's funny. All right. Now we have a clear answer. on where mortgage rates are today and how to look at them. So I want to talk about what we expect to see from here for the rest of the year. Chaley gives us her predictions right after the break. You ever head out on a trip, lock your door, and think, cool, my most valuable asset is now doing absolutely nothing.

Because while you're off traveling, your home is just sitting there. Quiet, empty, not contributing, which feels like a missed opportunity, considering it has solid Wi-Fi and a very comfy bed. With Airbnb's co-host network, your place can earn money while you're away. You can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle guest messages, prep your space, and manage reservations so everything runs smoothly. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.

A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips, and your trust slips too.

And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mind.com slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like an investment.

Here's why savvy real estate investors are obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income. Legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing and identifying these faster, appreciating assets in your property. They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50

states from remote cabins to apartment complexes. So if you own investment property, this is a no brainer. So visit costsegregationguise.com slash BP for your free proposal and find out how much you could save this tax season. Real estate investors, the April 15th tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't visited costsegregation.com yet, you can be handing thousands of to the IRS that you don't have to. Costegregation.com is self-guided software that helps you write off up to 25% of your building to generate huge tax deductions.

With pricing under 500 bucks and average tax savings of $25,000, cost segregation.com is fast and affordable, making it perfect for single-family rental properties, condos, townhomes, and even ADUs. What's more? Audit defense is included in the price and backed by KBKG, the number one cost segregation company in the U.S. Costsegregation.com was launched over 10 years ago

and has a 100% success rate under IRS audit. You heard that right, a 100% success rate, and that's over 10,000 studies. Go to costsegregation.com and use code tax deadline to get 10% off your first report. Don't overpay the IRS. Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th. Welcome back.

I'm here with lender Chaley Ridge. talking about the mortgage rates we're seeing today and what they signal for you as an investor. So let's get back into it. Well, let's talk about sort of the future a little bit. You mentioned earlier that you think that June is sort of the timeline for Fed cuts. We, if you listen to this podcast, you may know this, but let me just reiterate that Fed rate cuts are not necessarily correlated with declines in mortgage rates. That is more correlated with bond yields.

And we're going to talk about this a little bit more, just in a couple of minutes. But just want to make that clear up front. But what makes you think that, you know, the federal funds rate and monetary policy might shift a little bit in the June timeline? So, you know, if you guys really want to be prepared and track where rates are going to go and when they're going to go, you need to listen to the Fed. Go to the Federal Reserve.gov, okay, website, select monetary policy. And then from there on the drop down, go to meeting, calendars and information, I think it is. And it'll show you when the feds are meeting. And in fact, this is timely because the next one is this month in March, the 19th and the 20th.

And this will be a very unique meeting because it's going to be combined with summary of economic projections. So I think that when we see that, that'll be a real good precursor to tell us what is really coming and how. So the overall answer your question, Dave, I apologize. I took you around the block. Is it going to be about inflation, right? And I don't know how much time we want to spend on this. But the metrics to look at where inflation is, you've got your PCE, your CPI. If we dig into that, you let me know.

Jobs report, GDP, all of those things. They're watching very, very closely. Specifically, the PCE is the one that Fed favors when they're going to decide where inflationary numbers are and when interest rates are going to be cut. They are dead set on that 2% number. And also in preparation to this conversation with you, I started doing some research. I've asked this question before and nobody was able to answer it. So I just started doing my own Google search.

And while I have not, it came from a reliable source, I have not done my own digging. I was surprised to find out that the monetary policy for inflation of 2% was only initiated less than, well, a little over a decade ago by one of the former Fed chairs, Ben Bernacki. It didn't exist. I assumed it was this longstanding thing. And in fact, no, it was not. Nope. It was made up in New Zealand, actually.

Right. In the 90s, I think. Prior to the 1990s, there was no inflation target that I know of from any central bank. And for some reason or another, I can't remember these specifics. But in New Zealand, they decided they needed a target. They came up with 2% as the target and the rest of the world adopted it. And so that's where we are right now. And we in this country, it was only 2012. I was so surprised by that. I just assumed that this was something way back when, the forefathers or something and they'd come up with, this is the metric for inflation. But no, it's a relatively new. And I'm not sure that I agree that that's where it should be, but that's probably another conversation. Did I answer the question? Yes, you did.

And just so everyone knows, the summary of economic projections is something that the Fed puts out, I think it's quarterly. But basically, it is a analyst like mine's dream. They put together all these charts and all this data about what is happening and what they think is going to happen. And there's this thing called the dot plot. And that's what everyone gets all up in a frenzy about. The dot plot is a basically a survey of all the Fed governors, all the people who participate

in these meetings and where they think that interest rates are to go by the end of the year, one year out. And I think it goes up to two years out. So this is what all the people on Wall Street and all the lenders are looking at for these summary of economic projections because it's the Fed telling us where they think things are going to go. But it's really important to know that. that they're not always right.

They don't follow the dot plot. They don't follow the summary of economic projections exactly. They wait to see what's going to happen with inflation, with jobs reports like Chaley was saying. And so it's just an indication of where things to go. And in my opinion, sometimes people overweigh what's in these reports and sort of jump to some conclusions and don't wait for the data and policy to actually bear up. Because there's a lag, right? Maybe we should get a dot plot for how many times they're right or wrong when they predict what's going to happen.

I bet you someone's done that. That's a great idea. They probably have. We should look that up. Well, Charlie, before we let you go, is there any advice that you have for investors about how to navigate this interesting rate environment? Do your math. Like I always say, make sure that you understand what the real math is.

I would tell you that leverage, the higher the leverage, typically you'll find if you understand what the math is, it's going to give you the greater rate of return on the investment, more often than not. And start expanding your horizons for what your expectation on your investment is and maybe change strategy a little bit, right? If you had one expectation that's still stuck in 2020, 2020, 2021, maybe it's time to kind of open up to other ideas of real estate investing because there's a lot of different legs under that stool in ways that you can still be in real estate in that asset class and up the return

that you're not getting on the old model. Well, thank you so much for joining. Ms. Chaley, as always, we appreciate your time. Thank you, Dave. It was great to be here. Good to see you. Okay. Now that we have Chaley's boots on the ground perspective, let's take a minute to talk about why we're seeing what we're seeing and some smart actions that you can take as an investor right after this break. Calling all passive real estate investors out there. I'm going to get your attention. We have the Passive Pocket Summit coming up from April 30th to May 2nd in Denver, Colorado. This conference is not like other real estate conferences.

This one is built exclusively for the LP or limited partner. So if you want to network with other LPs out there and improve your investing skill set, then go to passivepockets.com slash summit and use a coupon code podcast to save you $50 off your registration. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off, and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances.

Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently, without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage Intent. so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card or check, and set custom roles in approval policies.

There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?

Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed, sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts.

You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now

and support our show by saying you heard, about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. New Year, clean slate, and maybe a vacancy that needs to get filled fast, that's where a veil comes in. With Avail, rental listings can be published to 24 top rental sites with one click,

completely free. That includes places renters are already searching, like Realtor.com, Apartments.com, Redfin, and more. No copying and pasting. No juggling multiple platforms, just one listing that shows up everywhere. If getting rentals organized and filled fast is on the list this year, start with Avail. Sign up for free at Avail.co slash bigger pockets. That's AVAIL.com slash bigger pockets.

Hey, everyone and welcome back to bigger news. All right, so that was some super helpful information from Chaley. Really appreciate her being here. And I can imagine that this news, that rates are a little bit higher than a lot of people were expecting is disappointing to a lot of people because obviously mortgage rates really impact your ability to afford an investment property or your primary residence. And I want to just dive one level deeper here and just explain why rates have stayed a bit higher than a lot of people were projecting. And I am honestly not surprised. Like, listen, I get stuff wrong all the time,

but this is something that I thought was sort of clear that rates weren't going to come down over the last couple of months. And there's a few reasons for that. One is that right now, the economy is still hotter than the Fed wants it to be. So that is the number one thing that we're looking at here. Inflation is a product of an overheated economy. And the Fed is going to wait until the economy cools down and inflation cools down before they start dropping rates. But by a lot of the metrics that the Fed cares about, the economy is just still too hot.

And there's a lot of debate about what metrics the Fed should be looking hot. I'm not going to get into that today. What I'm just going to say is that the Fed really cares a lot about the labor market and how many jobs there are. And they care about inflation as measured by the consumer price index or the PCE. And when we look at those measures, they are still doing pretty well. So the last job report that we had, which is in February of 2024, 275,000 jobs were added. And just for context, that is down from where we were a year ago. but most economists were expecting somewhere in the high 100,000, like 180,000.

And so it's actually outperforming what most economists. And I think the Fed were also thinking was going to happen. The second thing that happened was just the other day, like three days ago, I think on March 12th, the CPI, the Consumer Price Index came out, which is one of two favored inflation measurements for the Fed. it stayed high. It actually went up a little bit to 3.2% year over year. And it was at 3.1% the previous year. So it didn't go up a lot, but it is staying stubbornly high. If you look into this, if you look at some of the charts, you can see that inflation shot up to about 9%. Then it's come back down to about 4, but it's been really slow to come down past 3%. This means that the Fed may be a little bit more cautious in cutting rates. When you look at these two things combined,

If you think about the Fed, they basically have two jobs. The first job is to, quote, unquote, ensure price stability. That's just another word for controlling inflation. Their other job is to maximize employment. That just means make a robust job market, right? And so when you look at these two data sets combined, you can see that the Fed doesn't need to cut interest rates right now. Because the only reason they're going to cut rates is because the economy is slowing

too much. The inflation is still too high. And so they're going to keep rates higher, at least in my opinion, they're going to keep rates higher until they see the job market really start to crack more than it has. And so that's the number one reason why I'm not super surprised that rates haven't come down. It's because the economy is still hotter than the Fed would like it to be according to their preferred metrics. Now, the second thing that's really important to know here is that the markets, the mortgage markets price future Fed activity into current rates. So we talked in the interview about the dot plot, right? So mortgage bankers, all these people who are underwriting loans are looking at the dot plots

and they're like, okay, the Fed said that they are going to probably cut rates by three times in the next year. And so they're planning and they're setting their mortgage rates accordingly. They don't wait around for the Fed to take action. They are forecasting and making decisions based on that. And so that is why rates came down like in December because that's the last time we got a dot plot. That's the last time we got a summary of economic projections. And so people looked at that and they're like, okay, things are going great.

We're going to bake that in. And that's great because mortgage rates did come down. But that means that as long as the Fed just follows the plan that they thought they were going to do, rates won't come down anymore because that is already planned into mortgage rates. So that is number two. Number one, just as the economy is too hot, number two is that future Fed cuts are already baked into rates. And number three, and this one is super important, is the Fed does not control mortgage rates. I know they influence mortgage rates, but they do not set them. If you look at data or if you Google this, feel free to go Google this.

But mortgage rates are very closely correlated to the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury. And I don't have time to get into that. Actually, if you're going to attend the market intelligence workshop I talked about at the beginning of the episode, we're going to get all into that. But for now, just take my word for it. That is actually what happens. And although bond yields sometimes do come down when the Fed cuts rates, they don't necessarily do that.

Instead, bond rates are influenced, yes, by monetary policy here in the United States. Monetary policy is just a fancy word for what the Fed is doing. But it is also influenced by monetary policy by other countries, like what is going on in the Eurozone or Japan. That actually influences bond yields here in the U.S. Recession risk actually influences bond yields pretty significantly. The performance of other asset classes like the stock market or crypto markets also influence bond yields. And so even if the Fed does exactly what they're going to say they're going to do, that does not guarantee that, mortgage rates are going to fall. So I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news here. I do,

this is just my opinion. I do think that rates are going to trend down over the next year or two years, but I'm not surprised to see that rates have remained stubbornly high over the last couple of months because of these three things. And I hope that Chaley's right, that starting in June, we'll start to see rates come down. But there are still things that you can do as an investor. to operate during this time. First and foremost, high rates, it does impact affordability negatively. It makes it harder to buy stuff.

But there are some benefits to high mortgage rates, which is namely there is less competition. I don't know what you guys are seeing, but when I'm going out and looking at deals and trying to buy deals, things are sitting on the market longer in the markets that I'm operating in. And sellers are much more willing to negotiate.

So if you have the cash to buy at current rates, then this could actually be a decent time for you to buy. The second thing that you can do is consider what Chaley and I were talking about earlier is look for ways to get your rate lower. A lot of those ways involve reducing the risk for the bank, which is things like lowering the loan term, improving your credit score. You can also consider things like an adjustable rate mortgage. The other thing that you could do is perhaps consider adjusting your real estate investing

strategy like doing a house hack where you often get owner occupied rates, which as Chaley said, are less expensive than investor rates. So I know no one wants to hear that rates are staying higher for a little bit longer, but there are still things that you can do. And hopefully from this episode, you've learned how you can monitor mortgage rates and interest rates and monetary policy to get an idea of what's coming down the pipe so you can make informed investing decisions. All right. So that's what we got for you today.

Hopefully this was helpful. If it was helpful, always appreciate a review on either Apple or Spotify and like and subscribe to our channel or share it with a friend. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of Bigger News. I'll see you next week. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calicoe content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk.

So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. and remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.