Fair quarter at JPMorgan (JPM) this morning. Read more from our banking correspondent David Hollerith.
I took JPM’s earnings media call and asked CFO Jeremy Barnum for his thoughts on the post-housing interest rate cut. Overall, a housing boom at low rates doesn’t seem to be taking shape — but activity has picked up.
Here’s what Barnum told me (emphasis ours):
“What we’ve seen, as you would expect, is a pickup in mortgage applications and a slight increase in refinances, again, as you might expect. But when it comes to mortgages, it’s notable that all the sequential and annual changes are coming from a very low base. The country is below 6% and many of them are.” Still less than 5%.
Therefore, it will take a big rally at the long end of the yield curve to see a significant pickup in refinancing. The house’s view on home prices, you know, I think in general you have a tension between a little bit of a weaker economy that needs to create a little bit more supply, and there’s a little bit more construction, but generally there’s a housing shortage. Country. So the housing market seems to me to be a little bit more stuck, I would say.“
