Understanding Mortgage Rates in Light of Fed Actions

Mortgage rates aren’t directly influenced by Federal Reserve policy. However, the Fed’s recent cut likely will have a domino effect on the US housing market, say our Co-Heads of Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and James Egan.

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Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley.

James Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other Co-Head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. And on this episode of the podcast, we're going to discuss the impacts of a 50-basis point cut from the Fed on the US housing and mortgage markets.

It's Wednesday, October 16th at 1 pm in New York.

Now, Jay, the Fed cut 50 basis points at its last meeting. What are your views on the mortgage market in the aftermath of that cut?

Jay Bacow: We think that is constructive for mortgages and we recommended a long mortgage basis versus rates. The healthy economy and a Fed that doesn't want to fall behind the curve should be good for risk assets in general. We think there's a likelihood of vol possibly falling and that is constructive for agency mortgages in particular.

Now it's a positive narrative. But, the valuations matter, and we have to admit that the valuations are not that compelling with spreads on agency mortgages trading near the tights since the regional bank crisis. However, if you look further back, mortgages start to look attractive, particularly relative to other high quality fixed-income assets.

For instance, agency mortgages are basically trading at the average spread they've traded at since the GFC. Corporate credit, on the other hand, is trading within a few basis points of the tights since the GFC. If risk assets are going to do well, and we're certainly seeing that in corporate credit and in the stock market, we think mortgages are particularly priced attractively relative to most of them.

James Egan: Alright, so relative value for mortgages makes sense, but can you talk a little bit about the technicals here?

Jay Bacow: The technicals are where we feel more confident. One of the reasons why mortgage spreads have been wide for the past two years – it's an environment where the Fed and the domestic banks, the two largest holders of mortgages, have been reducing their holdings.

Now, we still expect the Fed to reduce their holdings of mortgages, but we think the bank demand is going to turn positive. That's due to not just clarity around the Basel III Endgame that should be coming soon, but more directly related to this conversation – as the Fed cuts rates that directly impacts the amount of yield that banks earn of the cash sitting at the Fed.

Now, that is projected to continue to go down as the Fed cuts rates. What's not projected to continually go down very much is the yield on the securities that they can be buying in mortgages. So, the incentive for them to move out of cash and into securities, and those securities likely to be mortgages, is picking up as the Fed cuts rates. And it's not just the banks that are going to be more active. It's also overseas investors. As the Fed cuts rates and the Bank of Japan hikes, the FX (foreign exchange) hedging costs, which is basically a function of the interest rate differential between the two banks is likely to decrease, which means that overseas investors will be more active.

A steeper curve is going to be positive for REIT demand. And then over time, as the Fed cuts rates and money market yields go down, those retail investors are likely to be incentivized to move out of money market funds into core funds with higher yields, which will be supportive of money manager demand – although that's likely a 2025 story.

James Egan: All right, Jay, thank you for that. But one of the questions that you and I have received a lot since the Fed's cut is: Okay, the Fed cut 50 basis points. Why haven't mortgage rates come down by 50 basis points on the follow?

Jay Bacow: Well, so, mortgage rates, obviously in the US, the vast majority of them are 30-year fixed rate mortgages. And so, if you have one, the Fed actions don't impact that. If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage, it will reset – but typically those resets happen every six months. Although you're probably getting asked about the prevailing mortgage rate; and the prevailing mortgage rate – because it's the 30-year fixed rate, it's not a function of Fed funds – but it's more of a function of the yields further out the curve. Although maybe Jim, you can do a better job explaining this.

James Egan: So, when it comes to interest rates and mortgages, Jay, as you mentioned, we're going to be more focused on the five- and 10-year part of the curve than we are on Fed funds.

To provide a little bit of an example there, from the fourth quarter of 2023 until the Wednesday morning that the Fed cut, 30-year mortgage rates had decreased by 180 basis points. The Fed had yet to cut a single basis point. But, just taking a step back from that cut specifically, mortgage rates have come down significantly from the fourth quarter of 2023.

Jay Bacow: Right, and those mortgage rates coming down significantly has improved affordability. But what's maybe a little surprising is that hasn't really led to a pickup in sales volumes. How should we think about that moving forward?

James Egan: So as mortgage rates have come down, we have seen an increase in mortgage applications, but that's been driven almost entirely by refinance applications.

Purchase applications, and that's going to be what's behind home sales, those have been more or less treading water for the past 12 months. This relationship makes sense, in our view. As mortgage rates have come down, housing remains unaffordable. It's just more affordable than it was in the second half of 2023.

But, if you were one of the people who bought a home over the past 24 months, and, to put that into context, that was the lowest number of home sales over a 24-month period since the second quarter of 2013. But if you were one of those people, there's a good chance that you're in the money to refinance right now.

Jay Bacow: And that's something that we're seeing in the data. We've talked about the truly refinance indicators on this podcast in the past, and it measures the share of mortgages that have at least 25 basis points of incentive to refinance after accounting for closing costs.

Right now, only about one in six of the outstanding borrowers have incentive to refinance. Now, that's up from pretty close to zero at the end of 2023, but if you just look at borrowers that have taken out their mortgage in the past two years, almost two-thirds of them have incentive to refinance.

Now, Jim, does that mean that purchase volumes are doomed to languish around these levels?

James Egan: No, but the reaction might not be as strong as some people are hoping for. While affordability has improved, it remains challenged. And the lock in effect has become a very popular phrase in the US housing and mortgage markets. And that's still in play. 75 per cent of the conventional mortgage universe still has a mortgage rate below 5 per cent.

Even with the prevailing rate at 6 per cent today, the effective mortgage rate on the outstanding universe is 200 basis points out of the money. That's better than 350 [basis points] out of the money like we saw last year. But that would still be the worst that it's been in 40 years.

Jay Bacow: And presumably, that is why we have this continually tight inventory.

James Egan: Exactly. Now, as rates come down, we are starting to see listings increase, but it's barely made a dent in the historically low nature of the existing housing supply. The existing home sales typically grow in the 12 to 24 months following affordability improvement, but not necessarily in that initial period while affordability is improving.

So relative to history, we're actually not underperforming that much from a sales perspective. And we should be beginning that 12 to 24 months sweet spot in the fourth quarter of [20]24. We just started that two to three weeks ago. While we expect existing home sales to increase, we think the growth is going to be modest relative to history and we're calling for 5 per cent growth in the coming 12 months.

On the home price side, a lot of this is in line with our current view. So, we think you're going to continue to see the pace of growth slow. It's already started to slow. We think we get from about 5 per cent today to 2 percent by the end.

Jay Bacow: All right, so the Fed cutting rates is not likely to cause mortgage rates to drop materially. We expect a modest pickup in housing activity. We expect home price growth to slow, but still end the year positive; and it should be supportive for mortgage spreads versus treasuries.

Jim, always a pleasure talking to you.

James Egan: Pleasure talking to you too, Jay.

Jay Bacow: Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.