Issue 154 - Hello and Happy Tuesday.

Jerome Powell took over the Fed in early 2018 with a balance sheet of about $4 trillion. By 2022, it had ballooned to nearly $9 trillion. That's almost $5 trillion in new money created on Powell's watch, most of it during the pandemic.

Wednesday is his final meeting as Chair. The same morning, the Senate Banking Committee votes to advance Kevin Warsh as his replacement. Warsh is viewed as more market-friendly and more open to rate cuts than Powell has been. If he clears, the next chapter of Fed policy is going to look very different than the last eight years.

Then Thursday brings PCE inflation, the number that actually moves mortgage rates. That's the one we're really watching.

Personal Note:
No newsletter next week. Taking the family to Hawaii for vacation (and my birthday). We’ll be back on May 12th!

TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) Summary

• ↔️ RATES - Mixed Bag.

• 🐜 INDUSTRY - Clear Section 1 NOT REQUIRED on VA.

• 📊 TECHNICALS - Homes, Retail & Jobs

INTEREST RATES
Rates 📢 April 28th, 2026

Rate data as of morning of publication. Unless noted otherwise, all scenarios are assuming 30 Year-Fixed mortgage, Purchase or R/T Refinance. No origination points charged, 780 FICO score, and 20% down payment. Provided for consumer education only and does not serve as a binding offer to extend lending. Payment period, interest rate, APR, and other terms subject to income, asset, and credit profile qualification. Provided courtesy of GTG Financial, Inc. NMLS 1595076. Equal housing opportunity. www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org

⏱️ Rates in 60 Seconds

🏦 The Fed meets on Wednesday, and this one is Powell's swan song. Jerome Powell will preside over his final meeting as Fed Chair before Kevin Warsh takes over in June. Nobody is expecting a rate cut. The market knows it. The Fed knows it. But every sentence from the press conference will get parsed for clues about what comes next, and a Fed transition mid-cycle is the definition of uncertainty. Bond markets do not love uncertainty, which means rates could move on tone alone, even if no policy changes.

📊 Thursday is the real test. PCE drops. PCE stands for Personal Consumption Expenditures, and it is the inflation number the Fed actually watches. CPI gets the headlines, but PCE is what shapes policy. A cool reading gives bonds room to rally and pulls mortgage rates lower. A hot one undoes the progress bonds have clawed back over the past two weeks. Either way, this report sets the tone heading into May.

🔄 Loose Ends from Last Week

Two stories we flagged were supposed to move the market. Neither did.

The lesson: the bond market is forward-looking, and most of the time it has already done the math before the headline hits. Warsh's confirmation was baked in weeks ago. The Iran ceasefire was a genuine wild card, but the market chose to wait and see instead of panic, and that patience paid off. Knee-jerk reactions sell ad space. Scheduled data drops like Thursday's PCE move rates.

What to watch this week

• Tuesday: Case-Shiller and FHFA home price data

• Wednesday: New home construction, Fed rate decision and Powell press conference

• Thursday: PCE inflation, Q1 GDP first estimate, jobless claims

Realtor Insight: Quiet weeks in mortgage rates usually come right before loud ones. With the Fed meeting Wednesday and PCE landing Thursday, what your buyers see today is a pause, not a pattern. If you have a buyer who is qualified, pre-approved, and watching the right home, this is the week to lean in, not the week to coast. The line to use with them: rates do not move on Fed announcements as much as they move on inflation data, and Thursday's PCE is the inflation report that actually matters. That framing alone makes you sound sharper than the agent across the street.

INDUSTRY
No Pest Clearance on VA?
If your lender doesn’t know about HUD-NPMA33, which allows you to circumvent the need for a clear Section 1 pest report, share this with them!!

TECHNICALS
Quiet Wins, Loaded Week

Last week delivered a few positive signals heading into one of the heaviest data weeks of the spring. Pending sales beat expectations, the labor market held its pattern, and mortgage bonds closed back in technically favorable territory. Now four major data points hit in three days.

Last Week's Data

• 📈 Pending home sales rose 1.5% in March, beating expectations and signaling buyers are still active despite higher rates

• 🛒 Retail sales jumped 1.7%, but most of the gain came from higher gas prices, not broader spending strength

• 📋 Jobless claims stayed low at 214,000, while continuing claims climbed to 1.821 million, meaning it is hard to lose a job but harder to find a new one

This Week's Calendar

• 🏠 Tuesday: Case-Shiller and FHFA home price data

• 🏛️ Tuesday and Wednesday: Fed meeting, with policy decision and press conference Wednesday afternoon

• 🔨 Wednesday: New home construction data

• 💰 Thursday: PCE inflation (the Fed's preferred inflation gauge), Q1 GDP first read, weekly jobless claims

Watch this: PCE Thursday is the inflation number that moves mortgage rates more than the Fed meeting itself. A cool reading opens the door to lower rates into summer. A hot reading keeps us stuck where we are.