When Search Trends Meet Rate Cycles, Momentum Follows

Rates trend down as we unpack the 10-year Treasury, MBS demand, and why a break could move mortgages by up to half a point. 

We tie market signals to buyer behavior, from Google’s top searches to simple, proven tactics that turn interest into action.

• How Treasuries and MBS shape mortgage pricing
• Jobs data revisions and implications for Fed cuts
• Current ranges for 30-year and 15-year fixed rates
• Why full payment estimates beat PI-only quotes
• Google trends: “mortgage calculator” and buyer intent
• Real estate SEO: “homes for sale in [city]” strategy
• Using lender apps and alerts for timely outreach
• Low-budget ad ideas that capture active demand
• Preparing clients for a potential June pivot

You can find Nikki on socials at mortgagesfromMntoAZ; on LinkedIn and Facebook at Nikki Erickson; call 952-484-1584; or email Nikki@KevnikGroup.com

Find Angie Gerber on Skool.com/rebusinessbuilders/about

Transcript

Market Update From Mexico

SPEAKER_01 0:37

All right, welcome to your Monday market update. It is February 23rd.

Treasuries, MBS, And Rate Drivers

Jobs Data And Fed Cut Timing

Current Rate Ranges And Triggers

Google Trends: Mortgage Calculators

Full Payment Estimates Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I'm doing wonderful. In Mexico this week. So I'm just coming to you from, you know, giving you still some mortgage news from, you know, outside the country, but we're having we're having fun. So interest rates took a kind of a really good turn last week and into this week. We saw the the tenure treasury increase, which has been kind of nice from, but not increased to the point where we're affecting mortgage interest rates, but really hitting some really critical points where we are going to see some improvement in those interest rates. There's two cat, there's two things that kind of have been contributing to mortgage interest rates and where they're at right now. One is the tenure treasury bond that we talk about. You know, that's what mortgage interest rates are based on, but also the price of mortgage backed securities. So that is what mortgage backed securities are selling for. And what's happening right now is that the there's a lot of downward pressure on that bond price to push it down below the 405 mark. It's right at 406. If we get that interest rate on the tenure bond to go down below that 4.5, we have a huge seal, a huge amount of opportunity for us to see those interest rates drop by up to half a percent. What's going to need to happen on the flip side in order for that to happen is there's going to have to be more purchasing of the mortgage-backed securities. Trump already put that in place and said that he wants the he wants us to be able to, or wants the government to purchase up to$400 billion in those mortgage-backed securities. So we're kind of waiting for those two things to kind of come together and meet in the middle before we start seeing some significant improvement in interest rates. We did see some job related. So when we come out with the jobs report to talk about job creations in the month of January, initial numbers were revised already down to 15,000 job creations. However, they still think the experts still think that that is a little bit high. Now we're going to actually see another revision down and maybe even some negative numbers in there. And once that happens, that should help the Fed be motivated again to cut interest rates. A lot of experts are saying we don't see that Fed rate getting cut until Kevin Warsh is in office in June. That'll be his first opportunity to cut that interest rate. However, there are plenty of Fed members that are on that are saying right now already, like, we need to cut, we need to cut, we need to cut. And I, and all the everybody's saying that they don't think that Powell is going to be in favor of it, and that we just really can't plan on it happening again until June, which is really disappointing, but we kind of knew that was coming. We talked about, you know, just kind of where things are at between the the doing this between Powell and Trump and things of that nature. So hopefully we'll see that in June. With that being said, mortgage interest rates are in the high fives, low sixes for fixed 30-year interest rates. I've seen some 15-year rates into the low fives, uh, which has been kind of a nice change as well. So just kind of, you know, putting it out there and and kind of riding that wave and those little market fluctuations as we see that bond, that 10-year treasury bond go up and down a little bit. So a lot of things happening, but nothing that's going to push, you know, those interest rates down significantly until we can either get a Fed cut rate or we can get that 10-year treasury bond down below 4.05. So we're kind of watching that closely as that happens. So I also want to talk today about just kind of trending topics that are being Googled when it relates to mortgage and real estate. Sometimes I will check on this just to kind of see what people are Googling, what and kind of gives us a tone for the market. Right now, the most Googled mortgage topic is a mortgage calculator. So people actually going in and trying to get their payments, figure out what their payments are going to be, either on a refinance or a purchase. This is important because what we, you know, when we see a lot of people doing this, it means that they're getting more serious about buying. They're getting more serious about putting the wheels in motion. And I was just talking to another realtor last week about a client who is using another lender. And she was talking about how when she went to go use this other lender, she sent the property address over to the lender to talk about payments. And he texted back a payment with principal and interest only, and then didn't give any information about insurance, homeowners association dues, or taxes. So the client wanted to go see the property, and the realtor was like, wait a sec, though, you don't know exactly what your payment's gonna be. And when figuring out the communication between the two, the loan officer wasn't basically willing to do the math on the taxes, wasn't willing to do the math on the insurance or figure out what that actual estimated payment was. And so it's really important, obviously, for realtors to advocate for their clients and make sure that their lender is giving them the all the information that they need because we don't want to waste anybody's time. But also really important on the consumer side to not have to be the one to calculate their own mortgage payments on properties. You know, that's part of our job. That's part of what we need to be doing is making sure that there's an affordability there when the client does go and search for, you know, their homes, et cetera. So I thought that was a really interesting correlation between most search topic and kind of just some real life application to that as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, that's amazing. And it reminds me like, I don't even know an analogy, but one that comes to mind is like if you were a chef or a cook and you didn't make sure the food wasn't rotten and you just cooked it and served it.

unknown 5:59

What?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

It's just unbelievable. I just I don't know. Like, where's the oversight? But yeah, so that's why you need a good partner like you.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah. And then I was gonna also mention from a real estate standpoint, now this is kind of like interesting from a real estate standpoint, what the most Googled terms are when it comes to that. And according to what I was researching, the most Googled term is homes for sale in and then the city name. What's really interesting about this, and kind of what I look at, another reason that I look at this stuff is when I'm doing my social media and trying to make sure I'm on trend or trying to make sure that my hashtags are trending, you know, looking up just what are the most Googled, you know, terms in real estate can be super helpful for you to do your hashtags for your social media and also to be able to say those keywords in the description or to say the keywords on a video. So, you know, hey, you know, talking about like, oh, you know, there's real estate for sale in and the particular cities that you guys are are servicing can be really helpful when it comes to trending topics and helping more and more people see videos. That's kind of one of the things that a lot of people get asked is when they start doing videos or when they start posting the social media, what's going to be trending? What's going to be out there that that I can make sure to include in my videos or include in my descriptions or whatever it is, so that you can start pushing those videos out and getting them more trending. So it's just a really good exercise to do every once in a while, not only to keep yourself relevant in the market and what's happening, but also to say, okay, what is trending? What do I need to include here? And how can I be helpful and useful to people?

Use Apps, Alerts, And Simple Posts

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah. No, absolutely. And to quick go back to the mortgage calculator. Now, I know in the past, with you in your app, do you have an app that connects to the clients that you can tell when they're using the mortgage calculator? Perfect. So that's what you need. Agents that are listening to this, your prospects, your clients, your sphere of influence, your inactive clients, anyone should be connected through Nikki with her app because anytime these people go in and use the mortgage calculator, you're notified, Nikki's notified, and it's just great data because these again, people are just out there googling it because they don't have it. So be the resource for them.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Exactly. Exactly. And you know, even people are Googling mortgage calculators. Guess what? Grab a link and share a mortgage calculator into some social media that you're doing. I mean, if people are if that's what people want, direct them to you, direct them to see you, direct them to you know, grab things from your social media that are going to reach people that you never thought possible just because you you're on top of what's trending and what's what people are Googling.

Prepare For A Potential June Shift

SPEAKER_01 8:49

That's huge, such a good point. Yes. So for all you agents that are like, I don't know what to post, post that. I post a link to a mortgage calculator, or I'm running an ad right now that's homes for sale in my county. So there's so many things, and you can do that for a very minimal amount, you know, like five dollars a day. And just think, I mean, it's it's phenomenal. So many different things, absolutely. What was I going to say? I was just going to reiterate back to June, you know, where you were talking about how the new Fed chair will look at lowering it in June. Is there anything that you're doing or you would recommend we do to prepare between now, you know, because we have a few months.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah, we do. And you know, it's really interesting because the the market right now is actually there's a lot of activity despite the fact that there hasn't been a Fed rate cut since December or since last year, I should say. So even despite that, there have been some other things that have happened that have started to drive those mortgage interest rates down, regardless of the Fed, which has been nice to see. So it's just a matter of keeping on top and keeping on trend and watching these videos every week and saying, hey, where are the interest rates? Are we seeing a downward trend and really re-engaging with clients and saying, hey, you know, things are going, the spring market's hot, you know, like we need to get you guys out there and get you guys to start purchasing or thinking about refinancing or whatever that is to keep in touch with them, just like you normally would, because interest rates are eventually going to come down. We've been talking about that for 18, 24 months, and they have. I mean, 24 months ago, we were talking about interest rates in the upper sevens. So we're, you know, we are definitely in that now. We're about two percentage points below that, and it's you know, it's gonna continue to go down. It's just taking slower and slower, depending on you know, other things that happen in the economy.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

So yeah, well, and that's a great point. Anyone that was waiting, I mean, that's a big difference between lower sevens and upper fives. So it's is something to definitely and and you have those people or those buyers or those prospects that really need to move or are feeling the pain of not moving, and now even though it might not be as low as they want, it's still good enough because they need to get moved. It's very good.

Contact Info And Community Invite

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, well, wonderful options together now than I was 12, 18 months ago.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yes, absolutely. So, Nikki, they want to get a hold of you. Where do we find you?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

You can find me on socials at mortgages from Mn to A Z. You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Facebook at Nikki Erickson. You can find me by calling me at 952-484-1584 or emailing me at Nikki at Kevnik Group.com.

Sign Off And Weekly Momentum

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Perfect. And a quick announcement as well for me. I just started a new community for women real estate. So it's real estate business builders, it's a free commute community on the school platform. So if you're listening, go check it out. It's school.com forward slash R E Business Builder, and you can slash about page and find out more about that and join for free. And I'd love to see you in there. Awesome. All right. Well, we'll see you all next week. And until then, go sell something. There you go. All right, bye, everyone. Bye.