Where mortgage rates, hiring, and home prices stand right now — and what it means if you're thinking about buying or selling.
Where Things Stand
A month ago, futures markets put roughly a 37% chance on the Fed raising short-term rates in July. That's off the table now. Heading into the September 16 meeting, the odds of a hike are essentially zero.
Inflation is still higher than the Fed wants, but it's moving the right way. The Cleveland Fed's one-year measure fell from 3.04% in June to 2.39%, and core CPI came in at 2.47%.
Mortgage rates haven't caught up yet. The 10-year Treasury barely moved all month, and the 30-year mortgage peaked at 6.85% on July 23 — a one-year high — before easing back to 6.74%. The gap between mortgage rates and Treasuries (normally about 1.7 percentage points) is narrowing. If it keeps closing, rates could drift into the low 6s without the Fed doing anything at all.
July payrolls came in at a loss of 23,000 jobs. Unemployment ticked down to 4.1%, but not for a good reason — the labor force shrank rather than hiring picking up.
The number worth watching is the hiring rate, still stuck at 3.4%. When companies aren't hiring, fewer people move for work — and fewer moves means fewer home sales.
Rates and jobs get the headlines, but wealth is the third driver of housing demand — and it's holding up. The S&P 500 is up 19% over the past year, and business profitability remains strong.
That shows up as real buying power, most visibly at the higher end of the market.
New consumer credit data from the New York Fed shows homeowners in unusually strong shape: very few mortgages behind on payments, very few foreclosures, and plenty of untapped home equity lines.
If you've been waiting for forced sellers to push prices down, that's not the market we're in.
If you're buying: rates at the year's high have thinned out the field. Fewer buyers competing is a real advantage right now, and if the gap between mortgage rates and Treasuries keeps narrowing, financing costs may improve from here.
If you're selling: buyer traffic is lighter than it was a year ago, so price and presentation carry more weight. Well-priced homes are still moving.
The national figures above come from Compass Chief Economist Mike Simonsen's August 2026 report. Orlando doesn't move in lockstep with the national numbers — if you want to know what this means for your street, call or text me.