Oil, Rates, And Student Loan Changes July 1st - What you NEED to know! Artwork

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Real Estate Agent Market Update and Mindset Podcast

Oil, Rates, And Student Loan Changes July 1st - What you NEED to know!

March 09, 2026 • Angie Gerber

0:00 | 14:13

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We break down why oil’s surge rattled bonds and nudged mortgage rates into the upper sixes, then dig into the July 1st reset of student loan repayment and how it could reshape debt-to-income ratios for buyers. Clear steps help listeners lock in accurate payments, protect pre-approvals, and move with confidence.

• oil spike driving inflation fears and rate volatility
• Student Loan - post–July 1st REQUIREMENT CHANGES
• forgiveness after 30 years with prior credit for payments
• Parent PLUS loans unchanged...
• steps to update income, verify contact info, and set plans in place

Questions - reach out to Nikki @mortgagesfromMntoAZ on Instagram or TikTok, Facebook at Nikki Erickson, call or text 952-484-1584, or email Nikki@KevnikGroup.com

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Market Check And Rate Snapshot

Oil Shock And Bond Volatility

Mortgage Rates Drift Into Upper Sixes

Application Uptick And Buyer Activity

Market Check And Rate Snapshot

SPEAKER_00 0:37

All right. Welcome to the Monday market update. It is March 9th. And Nikki, how are you?

Oil Shock And Bond Volatility

Mortgage Rates Drift Into Upper Sixes

Application Uptick And Buyer Activity

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I'm doing wonderful. Happy Monday, everybody. So we want to talk obviously about mortgage interest rates and what they've been doing over the last few days. So with the situation over in the Middle East, we have things that are happening that are affecting the market. Mainly it's oil prices. So because there is in the Persian Gulf, there is an inability right now for us to get oil out of there. We had the cost of oil has actually risen dramatically. It went from around$65 a barrel to topping out over the weekend at$119 a barrel. It has come back down to about$100 a barrel. We're hoping to see improvement as time goes on. The one thing that has helped improve the oil cost is that the there is some oil reserve that can be released that does not directly come from the Middle East, that's in reserve that we may or may not have access to. If that happens, we expect that oil prices will go down. Why this is important for mortgage interest rates is obviously with the stock market and the selling and trading and the 10-year bond, all this stuff has kind of disrupted things. So we are back up into the mid to upper sixes from an interest rate standpoint. We're hoping to see that come back down later this week into back into the low sixes. But it will all really depend on the cost of the oil and how that plays out over the next week. So we're just kind of keeping an eye on it right now. Things are status quo. People are still offering on homes, people still need to move and people still need to refinance. So we've got a lot of that stuff that's going on. There's been a definite uptick in the amount of applications that have gone into from a mortgage standpoint, not only from my personal business, but just generally around mortgage applications across the country has increased by about 1%, which doesn't seem like much, but it is actually a pretty significant increase since last month. So that's really good news. I want to talk a little bit about the changes that are coming July 1st to student loans. The Trump administration and the Congress passed a bill that changed the way that student loans are going to be repaid. This is important for anyone that is looking to get approved for a mortgage, and important for anyone who's looking to move before July 1st or after July 1st. So if you want to move before July 1st, that's the gonna be the old rules as it pertains to student loans. If you are going to move after July 1st, there's some new rules that you have to take into consideration. There's three different categories that are going to change when these new when this new law takes effects from a student loan. When we talk about mortgage, there's three different ways we look at student loans. First and foremost is going to be for the income-driven repayment plans. For those income driven repayment plans, if your payment is zero, Fannie does use 1% of the balance as the payment, if your payment is zero, because they require you to have a payment above zero. If your credit shows, hey, I'm paying$100 a month, we use$100 a month. But if your payment shows zero, Fannie requires us to use 1% of the balance. Freddie, on the other hand, if you're if there's a zero payment, they require us to show half a percent of the balance as the payment for qualifying. Neither program allows us to document zero dollar payments if you are on an income-driven repayment plan. That's how it is right now. Under the new new student loan laws, there is no such thing as income-driven repayment. Your payments are going to be based on somewhere between one and 10% of your adjusted gross income on your taxes. So depending on where that falls, you are going to have to start making student loan payments. So that's really from that standpoint, after that happens, from a conventional mortgage standpoint, we will be using what appears on the credit report. There wouldn't be no such thing as zero dollar payments anymore. Second category, standard repayment. If you are in a standard repayment plan right now, Fanny and Freddie say we will use the payment on the credit report, or we will use the 1% or half a percent. However, if you are on a standard payment repayment plan and there is a forgiveness aspect to it, Freddie allows you to exclude the payment, the student loan payments, as long as you can show that the forgiveness is going to happen within the next 10 years. Under the new student loan rules, your repayment term is going to be somewhere between 10 and 25 years. So it's all going to be standard repayment. It's going to be 1 to 10% of the balance, and you're going to have to pay that back between 10 and 25 years. Now here's where the fun part comes. If now the third category is talking about just basically forgiveness for student loan forgiveness. Fanny says, I don't care if you have student loan forgiveness or not, we're going to use 1% of the balance if it's a zero payment, or we're going to use the payment on the credit report. Freddie says, if you have loan forgiveness, you can document it. It's going to be forgiven in 10 years. We can use$0 for those payments for mortgage qualified. Under the new law, student loan laws, you do get full student loan forgiveness as long as you've been making payments for 30 years. But you're saying, wait a sec, though, the term is 10 to 25 years. So how can somebody be making payments for 30 years and get student loan forgiveness? So this is specifically aimed at people who have been paying on their student loans already and can show they get credit for the amount of time that they've been paying on those student loans. And then the remaining balance will be forgiven after 30 years of repayment. So the idea being that if you have student loans, I have two suggestions. First and foremost, call your student loan company, get your information updated from an income standpoint, and get your terms and your payment worked out with them before July 1st. If you do not get your payment and information worked out with them before July 1st, after July 1st, they're going to force a payment on you and it's going to be under their terms, not yours. So they're just going to group people into categories and they're going to say, hey, this is what we think you made, or this is the last documented amount we had you made. This is, you know, your new payment. This is when it starts. Have fun. So it would be my best piece of advice would be to contact your student loan company, especially if you're in the mode of wanting to purchase a home anytime soon, anytime this year, get your student loans figured out before that happens. That way we are able to qualify you based on the new information and your pre-approval will still be good even after you figure after these new changes happen. So a lot of information. But student loans are going to be a big deal now. So just have to understand where you're at, what's going to happen, etc.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Goodness. Yes. So if you have a buyer that has student loans or one that's on the fence, have them reach out to Nikki. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yes, it is. And yeah, that applies to anyone who has student loans. It does these changes do not apply to parent plus loans. Parent plus loans will continue on the repayment structure that they're on right now. So because those are required to be repaid anyway, they'll just continue on those payment structures.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yes, so so much to unpack. So much to unpack, yes. Yeah, you just gave like four really powerful new rules, standard, forgiveness, parent backed. I mean, all of these are things that you as an agent should be going to your socials and informing the people that look to you for knowledge, guidance, expertise. This is this is gonna be a big one. And if you could just think about it, if you can show up and give them a heads up so that, like you said, they call their provider, they figure out their terms on their in their payment or have it figured out for them after July 1st. I mean, if you can help direct them there, not that they're probably not getting notices, maybe they are, maybe they aren't, maybe they're not really paying attention or understanding. So this is huge opportunity as us to really show up and inform and educate and really help people.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah. Do your best to not avoid it is basically face it head on, get it done, get the, you know, regardless of whether you're paying buying a home this year or in the future, best piece of advice would be to just get it after it, get ahead of it, and not avoid it because there's going when you talk about maybe they haven't gotten alerted from their student loan company or whatever that is, the number of people that have incorrect information with their student loans, such as former addresses that they no longer live at, that doesn't have mail forwarding, email addresses that don't work anymore, they've signed up for paperless invites and they don't check that email, you know, things of that nature, that amount of people is huge. The student loan companies are required to inform everybody who they have a loan with about these changes, and I'm sure that they have. Me personally, anytime I pop up on student loans, it's a big alert message. Everything's changing July 1st. You know, make sure you have your stuff in line, you know, that type of thing. So the notices are going out. It's just a matter of is it correct addresses, is it correct emails, is it done paperless, is it done through the mail? Is it correctly forwarded? Things of that nature. So again, try do your best to get ahead of it. It's going to affect your ability to buy a home right now and towards the end of the year as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Absolutely. And just out of curiosity, so of the pre-approvals that you do or people that come to you, how many people on average, or if you had to guesstimate a percentage, have student loans? 80% or more. So this is a big one. It's a big one. That's 80%.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah. Most first-time home buyers have student loans. Believe it or not, most third or fourth time home buyers have student loans still that they're paying on. Yeah. Yeah. It's a huge deal, especially for you know, people who are doctors, people who are, you know, have taken out those bulk student loans that are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It really does affect their ability to qualify for a mortgage.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, absolutely. Wow, a powerful. Another every week, every week. It's just like, wow, yes, no, this is amazing. And Nikki, I I really hope agents that are watching this, whether it's on YouTube or listening on the podcast or one of the social media click-throughs, have questions. You should have questions. How do they reach you?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Um, they can reach me at on Instagram or TikTok at mortgages from Mn to A Z. You can reach me on Facebook at Nikki Ericsson. You can call me, text me at 952-484-1584, or you can email me at Nikki at Kevnik Group.com.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Perfect. Yes. And do so. Have your buyers reach out. If you have sellers that you're listing their homes and they're going to be buying, always, you know, that's not a question I ever asked or think to ask. So the fact that is 80%, that's huge.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

That's huge. Huge amount. Yeah. There's a lot of student loan debt out there.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

And if you have a data bank, a database, data bank that you're running, send out an email to everyone in it, whether it's a friend or a family member, sphere of influence, a client that's active or you've already sold. Everyone needs to know this because I can guarantee if they don't, they know someone, or maybe their child or someone has a student loan. So let's be the bearer of news, good or bad or indifferent. Uh, but again, the educators for sure. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Absolutely. And like you always say, Angie, who you work with matters. I mean, I know that there aren't, you know, I'm obviously ahead of this information, ahead of what how it's going to be effective. But, you know, a lot of the mortgage industry from a loan officer standpoint is more reactive than proactive. And so who you work with matters. And it's important that you're with your clients, you are proactive and talking through the student loans and making sure they are going to the lender and saying, hey, I've got this student loan thing that's coming up. How is this going to affect my approval?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah. Even just putting out a post if you're considering or in the middle or looking to buy a home now or towards the end of the year, July 1st changes. Want to know more? Let's jump on a call. I mean, it's phenomenal. And you can jump on a call with Nikki. You can get your clients' information, our prospects, our customers' clients, whatever it is, to Nikki and she will help them out. Phenomenal information. She's always there. And the knowledge you provide, and you have after 27 years, it's it's it's amazing. It blows my mind all the time. So I just appreciate you so much. Absolutely. All right. Well, that's good for this week. I mean, next week we'll see what we have as well. Hopefully, there'll be good news on the interest rate front. But for now, lean into this. I really, really appreciate it. Absolutely. All right. Have a good one. Bye, everyone. Bye.