Episode summary
Mortgage rates fell on Iran war news. What's next?
HousingWire Daily
· · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Logan Mohtashami
Summary
Mortgage rates and Treasury yields whipsawed on fresh Iran-war headlines, with Logan Mohtashami arguing that the market is reacting to escalation risk more than to any settled outcome. He said oil and the 10-year yield fell on hopes of de-escalation, then reversed when Iran denied talks, and he thinks the next few days will determine whether this is the start of the end or a larger spillover event. He also warned that the move has already changed rate expectations quickly, with the 2-year yield shifting from pricing in two cuts this year to even a possible hike.
Despite the macro chaos, Mohtashami said the housing data still looks surprisingly steady. He pointed to weekly pending home sales, purchase applications, and inventory trends that remain positive, while noting that inventory growth has slowed sharply from 33% to 5.61%. In his view, mortgage spreads remain the unsung hero keeping borrowing costs from blowing past 7% the way they did in prior years.
Mohtashami argued that businesses need clarity to make hiring and investment decisions, and that tariffs plus war headlines make that harder. He said housing would likely stay constructive if rates can get back to about 6.25% and lower, but that sustained growth becomes harder if rates stay elevated or move higher.
Key takeaways
- Logan Mohtashami said oil and the 10-year yield reversed quickly as Iran-war headlines shifted from de-escalation hopes to renewed escalation fears.
- He said the 2-year yield moved from pricing in two rate cuts this year to even a possible hike in a short amount of time.
- Mohtashami argued housing demand is still holding up, with weekly pending home sales and purchase applications remaining positive.
- He said inventory growth has slowed from 33% to 5.61%, and mortgage spreads are preventing rates from immediately breaking above 7%.
- He warned that tariffs and war headlines create uncertainty that makes hiring and business planning harder.
Notable quotes
“the 2-year yield, we we went from pricing in two rate cuts this year to now pricing in a possible hike”
“the housing data still positive with the weekend tracker”
“what I what I like to do with the tracker is basically take the worst levels of the spreads in 2023, 2024, 2025”
“housing data is literally boring, slow, and that's how housing data should be”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is lead analyst Logan Moto Shami to talk about some of the crazy things going on with oil uh with oil and with mortgage rates this morning. Before we dive in, I want to thank our sponsor, Trust and Will, for making this episode possible.
Logan, welcome back to the podcast. you know, um it's Monday morning and in Monday morning we've already had like three crazy headlines. Uh o over the weekend, uh President Trump basically gave an ultimatum to, you know, I'm going to bomb your power plants if you don't open straight to moves uh uh in 48 hours.
My first tweet on that was like I don't know if this strategy works you know this game planning because you know they're playing bully ball or bluffing to play bully ball at this stage where escalation gets I mean once you make a commitment to break out here it becomes more problematic. So President Trump said hey listen we're we're going to do a fiveday uh uh we'll give it a rest and then we'll we're doing some positive talks. Iran came out and said no there's nobody talking.
So, what we saw is oil prices fell right away, right?
10-year yield fell right away. But as soon as Iran said, "Hey, we're nobody's talking to anybody." Oil prices went up, 10-year yield went back up, and now Trump made another talk. You know, we need to get a deal. They need good PR people. I think we killed a lot of their PR people. But in any case, um I'm hoping this is the start of the end
Uh in this in this regard because again, like we talked about in the last podcast, we're past the 21st of March.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- mortgage rates
- iran war news
- housing demand
- macro environment
- mortgage rate inflection point
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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