Redfin Economists’ Weekly Take: Mortgage Rates Are Largely Lateral, All Focus Is on Upcoming Jobs Report

This Week In A Nutshell

Two weak labor market reports nudged rates ever so slightly lower last week, but the star of the show is this week’s official jobs report. That will determine whether the Fed might cut rates earlier than expected.

Upcoming Attractions

With the brief partial government shutdown ending last week, we are in for a week with two heavy hitters, the jobs report and the CPI report.

• Jobs report (Wednesday): The most important release of the week! The unemployment rate, which the Fed is mainly focused on, is expected to remain steady at 4.4%. Job creation in January is also expected to come similar to the 50k level from December. This month’s data will include both the annual benchmark revision and a methodological update to something called the “birth-death model”, which is how the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates how many firms are created/destroyed each month.
• CPI report (Friday): Core CPI is expected to come in at 0.3% month over month, which would bring the annual rate down to 2.5% from 2.6%.

Last Week’s Highlights

The week kicked off with a much stronger than expected ISM manufacturing report. But midweek, a pair of weak labor market reports brought rates down slightly. The JOLTS report showed significantly fewer job openings than expected. And the Challenger report came in with the highest number of layoffs in any January since 2009. However, it’s important to caution that the JOLTS data is often volatile and analysts noted that there is a possibility the Challenger data double counted some layoffs.

Diving a Little Deeper: The upcoming jobs report contains two big updates that will impact estimated job creation: (1) annual benchmark revisions and (2) changes to the birth-death model.

• The annual benchmark revision is what the BLS does every year to sync their more timely monthly data with more accurate (but slow) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). A preliminary estimate from the BLS showed that job creation between April 2024 and March 2025 would be 911k lower than the initial monthly jobs reports showed.
• The birth-death model is what the BLs uses to estimate job creation and destruction resulting from firms being created or destroyed. Starting this month, the BLS will start incorporating more current information in the model each month in an attempt to reduce the size of the annual benchmark revisions moving forward. But it may also create more volatile month-to-month data.

While these changes can result in seemingly shocking headlines (e.g., nearly a million fewer jobs were created), for thinking about mortgage rates and Fed policy, it is important to remember that they are well aware of all of these nuances and have forecasts of the revisions. Indeed, in advocating for lower rates, Fed Governor Christopher Waller had cited the likelihood of job creation being revised significantly lower.

Redfin Housing Market Reports

• Luxury Home Prices Keep Climbing Despite Sluggish Demand
  • Luxury home prices rose 4.6% in December—more than triple the gain in non luxury prices. Only two major metro areas saw declines.
  • Redfin agents say a lack of quality inventory is propping up prices; the supply of luxury homes for sale posted the slowest growth since April.
  • Pending sales of luxury homes fell 1.1%—the biggest drop since June—compared with a 0.6% decline in non luxury sales.
• Black Gen Zers and Millennials Are Half As Likely to Own Their Home As White Counterparts
  • Just 14% of Black Gen Zers and 32% of Black millennials own their home, roughly half the rate of white Gen Zers and millennials.
  • The homeownership rate for young Black Americans has ticked down over the last few years, while it has ticked up for young white Americans.
  • The racial homeownership gap is smaller but still significant for Gen Xers and baby boomers.

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