Happy Monday AM from your Hometown Lender,
This is a busy week for data.
Each day has something to make things interesting. We are absolutely running a gauntlet of data. Today we had ISM Manufacturing and Construction Spending, both weaker than expected. Tomorrow is Jolts and Factory orders, Wednesday is ADP, Bank of Canada and ISM Non-Manufacturing, Thursday is ECB rate decision and unemployment claims, Friday brings the biggest report of the month, the Jobs report. Rates this morning are similar to Friday. Markets still concerned about tariffs with recent headlines about tiff with China, as well as the growing shadow of Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful (Bloated) Bill’ and the debt it will require to make it work.
Speaking of the deficit, Dr. Elliott Eisenberg shared some great analysis.
The tax and spending bill recently passed by the House will, according to the CBO, increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion through 2034. However, the bill isn’t fiscally expansionary. This is because the sum of the tax cut extensions, which have been in place since 1/1/18, cost $5 trillion. The newly proposed raft of tax and spending cuts collectively save $1.7 trillion, reducing the Treasury loss to $3.3 trillion.
Hopefully (hope is not a plan) weak data and certainly weak labor market data will help rates improve. However, the opposite is also true. Signs of a stronger than expected labor market could pressure pricing to be worse this week.
ATTOM has released its Q2 2025 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report…
It’s showing that 1.4 million (1,382,480) residential properties, or approximately 1.3% of all homes in the U.S., are vacant. ATTOM’s Q2 report marks the 13th consecutive quarter that the vacancy rate has hovered around the 1.3% range.
ATTOM’s analysis shows that 222,358 properties were in the foreclosure process during Q2 of 2025, up 4.8% from the first quarter of 2025, but down 6.3% year-over-year. Prior to this latest increase, the number of properties in foreclosure had gone down in each of the previous five quarters.
And, how are home prices doing? Tap image for more.
In the first quarter of 2025, U.S. house prices increased 4.0% compared to the first quarter of 2024, as reported by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. House price growth has seen positive annual growth since 2012 but has started to slow since reaching a peak of over 18% in 2022. Outside the post-pandemic period, the Q1 growth rate was the slowest since 2012.
Stay safe and make today great!