This is your fault! Numbers were great and it sucks and now we're screwed 🤦‍♂️

This Week's Market + Media Update with JohnB

Author

John Birke
October 23, 2023

The only newsletter (probably) where you can get the latest market trends, mortgage news, and social media updates all in one place

🔥October 23rd, 2023🔥

Last Week:

  1. Homebuilders ain’t feeling homebetter

  2. Y’all are buying too much

  3. The Fed is ready to take inflation down, even if that means taking the rest of the economy with it

  4. The House starts back from scratch to find a Speaker

  5. Treasury yields hit a new peak, showing the uneasiness of the market

  6. Rates were back up to new records last week, hitting the dreaded 8% mark

Plus, more Canva+AI fun and some secret sauce on Google SEO 😮

Really quick, if someone forwarded this email to you, don’t settle for being at mooch. Sign up and get it for yourself here 👇

Ok, now let’s get to it!

 The Mortgage Part 

Check out this week’s video 📽👇

👷‍♀️ Homebuilders: Sentiment drops to the lowest level this year as we see single-family construction continues it’s decline

Homebuilder sentiment drops to 10-month low, as mortgage rates soar

Builder sentiment for single-family homes dropped to the lowest level since January, as mortgage rates soar.

www.cnbc.com/2023/10/17/homebuilder-sentiment-drops-to-10-month-low-as-mortgage-rates-soar.html

Single-Family Permits Decline in August 2023

Over the first eight months of 2023, the total number of single-family permits issued year-to-date (YTD) nationwide reached 615,453. On a year-over-year (YoY) basis, this is 15.6% below the August 2022 level of 728,866. Year-to-date ending in August, single-family permits declined in all four regions.

eyeonhousing.org/2023/10/single-family-permits-decline-in-august-2023

💵 Retail sales: Way up in September, sparking fears that the Fed will need to keep rates high for longer than expected

Retail sales rose 0.7% in September, much stronger than estimate

The advanced retail sales report for September was expected to show a gain of 0.3%, according to a Dow Jones estimate.

www.cnbc.com/2023/10/17/retail-sales-september-2023-.html

🥊 The Fed vs. Inflation: Fed heads say we aren’t anywhere close to seeing any rate relief. We’ll need the economy to take a turn for the worse first.

Fed's Raphael Bostic doesn't foresee rate cuts coming until 'late 2024'

The central bank official told CNBC that there's still a lot of work to be done before the Fed reaches its inflation goal of 2% annually.

www.cnbc.com/2023/10/20/feds-raphael-bostic-doesnt-foresee-rate-cuts-coming-until-late-2024.html

Powell says inflation is still too high and lower economic growth is likely needed to bring it down

Powell hinted the labor market and economic growth may need to slow to ultimately achieve the Fed's goal.

www.cnbc.com/2023/10/19/powell-says-inflation-is-still-too-high-and-lower-economic-growth-is-likely-needed-to-bring-it-down.html

🏛 The House Remains Speakerless: The government continues to sit idle as Jordan looses 3 straight votes for Speaker. The GOP now starts from scratch to stop the chaos

House GOP scrambles to find path forward after voting to push out Jordan as speaker nominee

House Republicans are once again scrambling with no clear path to elect a new speaker after voting to push Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan out of the race, the latest sign of the chaos and divisions that have engulfed the majority party and left the chamber in a state of paralysis.

www.cnn.com/2023/10/20/politics/jim-jordan-speaker-fight-vote/index.html

📈 Treasury Time-bomb: The 10-year yield, an indicator for mortgage rates, hit the highest level since before the Great Recession

10-year Treasury yield breaks above 4.9% for the first time since 2007

U.S. Treasurys were up on Wednesday as investors digested the latest economic data and considered the outlook for Federal Reserve interest rates.

www.cnbc.com/2023/10/18/us-treasury-yields-investors-weigh-economic-data.html

% Mortgage Rates: As I was afraid of, mortgage rates jumped despite improvements the previous week. We set a 21st century record, hitting 8% before dropping back down slightly

MBS Dashboard - MBS Prices, Treasuries and Analysis

View MBS prices and charts and follow the day's market activity with Micro News and Commentary.

www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mbs

🔍 Coming this week: Home prices, GDP, and the Fed’s fave inflation indicator: the PCE

U.S. Economic Calendar - MarketWatch

U.S. economic calendar consensus forecasts from MarketWatch.

www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendar

 The Media Part 

🔥 Canva + AI is just too much fun

Last week at our Canva+AI: Magic at Your Fingertips online class we explored the plethora of new AI tools Canva just rolled out. We played with things like:

  • Magic Design for Presentations

  • Magic Write (with brand voice)

  • Magic Switch to make our content go so much farther

  • Magically transforming a presentation into a blog post with a click

  • Magic Edit, Extend, Erase, and Morph in a single pic

  • Magic Media to create AI-generated images and video

  • Magic Design to create a video with that AI imagery

And the crazy part, we only scraped the surface! There is so much you can do it will blow your mind 🤯 You have to get in there and try it out for yourself! And if you missed the first session on Friday, jump onto one of the other options I have coming up this week. See you there!

Tuesday, October 24th at 10AM EST

Wednesday, October 25th at 12PM EST

🤐 The Secret Sauce: Ingredients for a Winning Google Ranking

Search engine optimization is an ever-evolving practice as Google continuously tweaks its algorithm. But many of the core best practices remain unchanged when it comes to achieving high search rankings.

As an SEO consultant, I'm often asked what are the most important factors to focus on. Based on my experience and knowledge, I'd say page speed, mobile optimization, backlink profiles, on-page optimization, high quality content, and user experience are critical.

With Google's mobile-first indexing, sites that load fast and adapt for mobile devices tend to outperform. Earning backlinks from reputable sites boosts credibility and rankings. Optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text for target keywords improves on-page SEO.

And good old fashioned unique, useful, engaging content written for humans instead of search engines trumps tricks and hacks. While no one can crack Google's entire algorithm, keeping these best practices in mind serves as a solid general SEO strategy.

The Top 3 Google Ranking Factors That Really Matter

Start by really understanding Google’s motivation and how it works, so you can shape your approach to content and SEO strategy in order to rank.

www.searchenginejournal.com/top-ranking-factors/498548

Well that’s it for the best (and likely only) Mortgage AND Media Newsletter out there. This week watch for the GDP numbers and major inflation indicator, the PCE. These will tell us where the economy is and what the Fed might do next. Note: If either comes in high, that could be bad news for those of us that want to see rates coming down soon 😥

And as always, I’m happy to help you and your clients with anything mortgage, marketing, or social media. See you next week and

Thanks for reading!

John Birke | Mortgage Advisor | Content Coach

NMNLS 1150795

Movement Mortgage
9726 Old Bailes Road, Suites 121 & 130, Fort Mill, South Carolina 29707

NC-I-211026, SC-MLO-1150795, AR-128178, MO-1150795, OK-MLO29209 | Movement Mortgage LLC. All rights reserved. NMLS ID #39179 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). Interest rates and products are subject to change without notice and may or may not be available at the time of loan commitment or lock-in. Borrowers must qualify at closing for all benefits. For more licensing information please visit movement.com/legal.


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