What can President Trump do to help the housing crisis?

10-year income and mortgage rates

Mine includes:

• A range for mortgage rates between 7.25% -5.75%
• A range for the 10-year yield between 4.70% -3.80%

For all the smoke and jazz that happened last week, it was actually pretty boring. The 10-year yield, but given all the headlines that were up or down last week, mortgage rates, we moved a little bit. For me, the labor market is the most important for ratios, and the jobless claims touched a bit last week, but with the cold weather, the market also ignored it. I addressed Trump's demand for low mortgages.

To bring down mortgage rates, President Trump can play the role of a refereeing basketball coach (Federal reserve Chair Powell) to make the call to go his way, but Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent would have more influence. However, President Trump could put pressure on the Fed to act faster if inflation and labor data continue to be softer.

Issue mortgages

To put it simply, if mortgage spreads don't improve from the worst of the spreads we've seen in 2023, we'll likely lose construction workers and not have the last jump in home sales.

The U.S. would be better off in 2024 without a rollout and now worse off in 2025. If we apply the worst-case spread levels to today's rates from 2023, we'll see an additional 0.79% increase in the mortgage rate—closer to 8%. On the other hand, with mortgage spreads at typical levels, we could expect mortgage rates to be around 0.74 – 0.84% ​​higher than they are now, which means mortgage rates closer to 6%.

Some people have asked me if President Trump has the authority to buy someone mortgage-backed securities to improve the bottom line, which could sell with mortgage rates close to 6%. I have no answer. However, if the Treasury can use some of its earnings to buy MBS, especially if the bessent is backed by conservative government enterprises (GSES). This scenario is more likely than President Trump, who has proposed funding from Congress to lower mortgage rates.

For my 2025 forecast, I expected an average improvement of 2.27% -0.41% in 2024, compared to an average of 2.54%. decreases.

Buy app data

Buying apps data is a mildly positive week, plus 1% week-over-week and 2% year-over-year. So here's a two-week winning streak.

Last year, this data line was very pessimistic, with mortgage rates between 6.75%-7.50%, 14.50% in 14 negative weeks, two positive and two straight tracking weeks.

I'm sure President Trump has started something before 2025, with construction workers losing their jobs during his presidency.

Weekly pending sale

Last week's pending contract data offers critical insights into real-time trends in housing demand. Valuation, but our weekly data has been softer lately. I expect this softness to show up in the expected home sales data Orange Soon the low bar in sales was raised. It is still higher today than in 2023; If mortgage rates can only go up to 6%, there is an increase in sales.

Pending contracts per week over the past few years:

• 2025: 266,015
• 2024: 275.5599
• 2023: 241,975

Weekly housing inventory data

As we begin in 2025, we are closely monitoring data performance. Over the past decade, we've generally seen the lowest inventory levels in February, as we did last year. However, in the post-Covid-19 years, the seasonal low has started to shift to March and April.

This is a line of data that I love that President Trump loves to see, because one of his promises is getting the market going, and with housing permits at recession levels, the fastest way to buy inventory has to come from the existing home sales market.

So far, inventory data looks promising as we return to the lowest 2019 inventory in more than five decades due to the impact of Covid-19.

• Weekly inventory change (Jan. 17-Jan. 24): Inventory is up 632,118 for 636,580
• Same week last year (19/19): inventory fell 506,373 for 503,192
• The all time inventory bottom was in 2022 240,497
• The inventory for 2024 was the peak 739,434
• For some context, for active listings for the same week in 2015 938,452

New listings information

Our new listing data reflects homes that go on the market without immediate contract, providing a real-time view of any selling pressure in the market. The past five years have seen the lowest levels of activity in history.

Last year, I thought it would hit a minimum of 80,000 new listings during peak seasonal weeks, but that didn't happen; I left until about 5000. Seasonal peak weeks from 2013 to 2019 were between 80,000 and 110,000 listings. Unfortunately, the last two years have seen previous lows.

During the housing bubble crash years, this data line fluctuated between 250,000 and 400,000 per week. But we emphasized credit sellers back then, that's no longer the case. Last week's new listings in the last few years:

• 2025: 50,955
• 2024: 44,921
• 2023: 42,843

Price cut percentage

In an average year, one-third of all houses are sold, reflecting the usual dynamics of the housing market. We are in the seasonal down period for price cuts; Already lower than 2023 but higher than 2024.

Interest rates that have been cut in the last week over the previous several years:

• 2025: 32.96%
• 2024: 31%
• 2023: 34%

Next week: Fed Week with tons of economic data

It's Fed Week! We can expect some interesting questions and answers after President Trump's Fed announcement last week and then this week. We also have plenty of economic data to look forward to this week, including new home sales, home prices, PCE inflation and some bond auctions. As usual, jobless claims data will be released on Thursday. It should be noted that last week we saw an increase in claims.

This week, expect an eye on home sales data as well; Future reports will show the softness reflected in our weekly pending contract data.