Mortgage rates in the US were lower over the past week on average. By a whole 4bps.

Can you feel the savings?

When considered with a 1bps decrease the prior week, rates are down 5bps on average since late last month.

I’ll ask you again: Can you feel the savings?!

Ok, that’s enough snark. (Narrator: It’s never enough snark.) Wednesday’s MBA update showed the average 30-year fixed meandered to 6.84% in what, on a generous interpretation, might be described as “marginal relief” for Americans trying to get in the door during the spring buying season.

As the updated figure shows, 7% (or thereabouts) is the new normal. In some cases, begrudging acceptance of a new normal can facilitate purchases. Like this: “I give up. Rates aren’t going lower. I’ll just bite the bullet and buy.” In other cases, accepting that rates aren’t going to fall meaningfully is to accept that homeownership isn’t an option in the near-term. Like this: “I give up. Rates aren’t going lower. I’ll just have to keep renting.”

Anyway, mortgage apps increased, suggesting there are, in fact, still buyers waiting to jump on any rate decline, no matter how trivial. Or at least that’s the standard narrative. The boilerplate copy.

“The net impact on mortgage rates [from last week’s US macro data] was mostly downward but just back to levels from early April,” MBA VP Mike Fratantoni said, adding that the 13% jump in purchase apps counted as a “surprisingly strong move given lingering economic uncertainty.”

To that point (about macro uncertainty), a shallow US recession seems all but inevitable at this juncture, China truce or not. One concern is that diminished foreign demand for US Treasurys and, relatedly, a higher term premium, will put a floor under bond yields and thereby mortgage rates, just as the labor market rolls over. Job losses and “sticky” high mortgage rates is a bad combination.

Speaking of job losses and the housing market, Redfin data shows active listings in D.C. rose more than 25% YoY in the four weeks to April 27.

As the figure shows, that’s the biggest jump ever, and I suppose I don’t have to tell you who’s responsible.

“Quite a few people in D.C. are selling their homes because they’re losing their jobs,” one local agent told Lily Katz, for an article published Wednesday.

“Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been slashing government” payrolls, Katz noted dryly, adding that “at least 121,000 federal workers have been laid off or targeted for layoffs since Donald Trump took office” in January.