Wondering what's happening with Utah's housing inventory and mortgage rates right now? Here are today's numbers, plus what's behind the recent rate moves.

Today's Numbers

  • Rates are at 6.77 percent, up a little bit from Friday. Bonds are a little better this morning, and I'll explain why.
  • Median days on market for Utah: 45
  • Salt Lake County inventory: 4.6 months
  • Utah County: 5.2 months
  • Davis County: 4.4 months
  • Weber County: 5.6 months
  • Statewide: 5.7 months, on 14,822 active listings, up 9.5 percent from last year

If you're trying to figure out what you can afford in this market, my affordability calculator can help you get a real number before you start shopping.

The Sugar High, and What's Different This Time

All right, let's talk rates.

Last week the Treasury made a move that turned out to be a sugar high, and it wore off quickly. Rates improved slightly, but it was only for a day.

It wore off for two reasons. Oil prices kept climbing.

And the method of the buyback was easy to see through. The Treasury just issued more debt to buy back its long-term debt.

This morning, though, the Treasury announced it could buy those long-term bonds back using a different source: the Treasury General Account.

There's about 200 billion dollars more in that account than there was last year, and Secretary Bessent mentioned the possibility of about 4 billion a month in purchases of its own long-term bonds.

This could improve mortgage rates for more than a day, because of one difference: the source of where the funds are coming from.

The Treasury doesn't have to issue new debt to buy this long-term debt. The money is already accounted for.

That's why it could make a bigger impact.

But I still see it as more can-kicking down the road. The TGA is a combination of income from federal taxes and its debt issuance, so we're using more debt to pay off different debt.

What this doesn't do is fix the deficit spending.

That's why I don't see it as a permanent solution, but it could temporarily improve mortgage rates.

One thing to watch this afternoon: Washington is expected to announce new financial sanctions on Iran around 2 o'clock Eastern. Oil and bonds have been trading off that story all month, so the reaction to this will matter more than the actual announcement.

What's Next This Week

Tomorrow we have fresh home price data, and we have new home sales. Wednesday we get PCE and GDP. And Friday it's the Fed's Jackson Hole symposium.

If you want to see how these rate swings actually affect your monthly payment and closing costs, run your numbers through my payment and closing cost calculator.

Sam

Originally shared by u/SamTMortgageBroker in r/UtahHomeBuying — view the original thread.